


Second Spring

by vondrostes



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - American, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Bottom Harry, Cunnilingus, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Female Ejaculation, Fluff and Smut, Gender Dysphoria, Hospitalization, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Light Angst, Post-Op Trans Character, Slice of Life, Surgery, Trans Female Character, Trans Harry Styles, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-06
Updated: 2020-04-09
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:46:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 103,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22148908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vondrostes/pseuds/vondrostes
Summary: Two years into their relationship, Louis and Harry encounter a new beginning.
Relationships: Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson
Comments: 136
Kudos: 447





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> As described in the tags, this is an American AU where Harry is a trans woman. I've included some warnings at the end of the list, but just for repetition's sake, please be aware that there are somewhat graphic depictions of post-surgery care as well as themes regarding dysphoria. There are also a few minor mentions of an off-screen groping incident. This isn't discussed in great detail.
> 
> Warnings aside, this is overall a very fluffy fic focusing on a trans woman's eventual happiness in all aspects of her life, as told through the eyes of her partner. It is almost certainly the fluffiest thing I have ever written, so don't expect Call Answered levels of angst here.
> 
> This fic is finished with 30 chapters and about 103,000 words. It'll be posted serially on AO3 with 2 chapters a week on Mondays and Thursdays starting next week (Chapter 4 will be posted this Thursday). Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis was seething. He was stuck in Kansas City of all places, attending a days-long training conference with all of the other new attorneys from the office in LA only two weeks before Christmas, and no matter how much he’d begged and pleaded with his supervisor that he needed the time off, he hadn’t been able to get it. So here he was, trapped at a table with a bunch of other newbies, watching a senior attorney drone on and on about various tasks Louis had already been doing in the office without supervision for months now.

Thankfully, their phones hadn’t been confiscated at the door like they had been during the first training session. Louis had his (on silent, of course) sitting out on the table directly in front of him, face up. He kept glancing anxiously at the screen every five minutes or so, waiting for updates on Harry’s progress. The last text he’d received had been from Anne: a photo of Harry in her hospital gown giving the camera a thumbs up as she grinned, all teeth, with an IV already in her hand.

Louis had excused himself for an anxious puking session in the bathroom across the hall right after that.

It had been several hours now since Louis had received that text, which meant that Harry would be coming out of surgery at any moment. Should be. Hopefully. Louis was shitting himself still over the possibility that something might go horribly wrong.

When his phone finally lit up again, Louis almost fell out of his chair. He caught a few sideways glances from the other attorneys around him as he reached over to open the text, but the presenter continued undeterred and didn’t seem to notice the minor disruption.

The text was from Gemma this time, which Louis hadn’t anticipated: _She just got out of surgery but she’s in the recovery room now while they get a private bed ready for her. They won’t let us in to see her yet. We’ll keep you updated._

Louis’s heart sank as he slumped back in his chair. He stared straight ahead at the projector screen, seeing nothing but blurry shapes, absorbing none of the information from the presentation being given. The text hadn’t been remotely close to what he’d wanted to hear, but he had to assume that Anne and Gemma would have already been informed if something had gone wrong during surgery. Surely, being in the recovery room was a good thing, right? But despite his attempts at self-reassurance, Louis couldn’t shake the layers of worry clouding his mind.

Louis was back in his hotel room for the night by the time he got the phone call. He’d begged off going to dinner with the others for exactly that reason, not wanting to miss a vital update because he was out getting pizza and drinks. It was nearly nine when his phone finally lit up again, this time with Anne’s name pulsing gently in time with the quiet vibrations.

Louis scrambled to pick it up. “Hello?” he answered worriedly.

“Hey.” It was Harry’s voice, hoarser and a little deeper in pitch than Louis was accustomed to these days, but it was still unmistakably Harry.

Louis flopped back onto the pillows underneath him with a sigh of relief. “Hey,” he said back. “How are you feeling?”

“Like shit,” Harry replied bluntly. “Everything hurts. I threw up in the recovery room twice and they had to give me a sponge bath.”

“From the anesthesia?”

“Yeah,” she grumbled. “I don’t think the morphine helped, either, though. They’re giving me stuff for the nausea now because they said I can’t have ibuprofen yet, so it’s a little better, but I still feel like crap.”

Louis hummed quietly in sympathy. He remembered the last time she’d taken opiates, when she’d had a migraine so bad she couldn’t get out of bed. Louis had been desperate to make it stop and hadn’t wanted to drag her to an urgent care, so he’d slipped her a pill from an old prescription, and she’d spent the rest of the evening in a drugged-up delirium with her head in the toilet. It wasn’t an experience either of them had wanted to repeat, so they’d told Harry’s surgeon in advance about her intolerance for narcotics. The doctors and nurses had insisted it was necessary for the first night at least, until they could be sure that giving her anything else wouldn’t put her at risk for more bleeding.

“I’m sorry I can’t be there with you,” Louis told her.

“It’s okay,” Harry replied. “Mom and Gems are here now, and I’ve pretty much just been sleeping all day. Probably gonna sleep some more after I eat.”

“Is that a good idea? With the throwing up and everything?”

“It’s just soup,” Harry reassured him. “They told me I need to eat something, so.”

Louis supposed the nurses would know better than either of them, but he was still unbearably anxious, and the fact that he couldn’t do anything for Harry from fifteen-hundred miles away was only making his stress levels rise. “Do you want me to let you go?” he asked her. “So you can eat and sleep some more?”

Harry yawned as she answered. “Yeah, I guess. Mom’s charging my phone, so you can text me now. It might be a while before I reply, though.”

“Okay,” Louis replied. “I’ll do that. Goodnight, babe.”

“Night,” Harry said, yawning again just before the line went dead.

Louis spent most of the next day squeezing in texts to Harry whenever he had the time. Sometimes, there would be long stretches of nothing before she answered, but Louis was choosing to take that as a sign that she was getting plenty of rest during her post-surgery recovery period.

It was shortly after lunch the day after that that someone finally pointed out Louis’s inattention to the conference as a whole: Jordan, the firm’s newest clerk, who tended to follow Louis around like a baby duckling—particularly when the other junior attorneys weren’t feeling particularly friendly.

“You’ve been glued to that thing all day,” Jordan commented as they lounged outside the conference room with bottles of water in their hands, impatiently waiting for the next stretch of presentations to start again.

Louis forced a smile onto his face and reflexively tucked his phone back into his pocket. “Yeah,” he said tightly. “I guess so.”

“Relationship stuff?” Jordan guessed. He was closer to the mark than he should have been, given that Louis tried to avoid talking about his personal life to his coworkers, most of whom he disliked at best—and despised at most. Jordan was one of the more tolerable ones in the grand scheme of things, but he hadn’t been at the firm long enough for he and Louis to develop much of a rapport.

“Kind of?” Louis admitted. “It’s not really, like—uh, I’m just checking in on her, mostly. My girlfriend, I mean.”

Jordan’s eyebrows scrunched up a little in obvious confusion, and for a moment, Louis was worried that Jordan had thought this whole time that Louis was gay. That his partner back home was a man. It wouldn’t have been the first time such a misunderstanding had occurred. But then Jordan opened his mouth with a slight smile curving his lips upward, saying, “Yeah? Worried she’s gonna throw a party and wreck the house while you’re out of town?”

Louis huffed out a short laugh. “Not exactly,” he said, pausing for a moment to consider just how much he really wanted to share before continuing. “Actually, she’s in the hospital right now. So I’m just trying to—” He lifted his phone up as thought to drive home his point. “—Keep her company, you know? Till I can fly back to LA.”

Jordan’s expression quickly creased into one of concern, but it did seem genuine, at least. “Is she okay? Did something happen?”

Louis froze for a second before shaking his head, uncertain now as to how he should navigate the rest of the conversation. This was one of the many reasons he didn’t like to open up at work, especially to people who he hadn’t had enough time to vet. He didn’t want to risk revealing too much about Harry and have it turn out that his confidante had actually been a raging bigot the entire time. “She had surgery yesterday,” Louis said carefully. “It was a planned thing; we knew it was coming up, but I couldn’t get out of the conference even with that as an excuse.” He made a face, hoping to distract from his confession.

Jordan frowned sympathetically. “She’s okay, though, right?”

“Yeah,” Louis replied. “Yeah, of course. She’s doing really well, actually.”

Luckily, Louis was saved from having to provide any further explanation by their supervisor, who popped his head around the door to the conference room to wave them all in once more.

The next day was a lot rougher on Harry’s end, as she’d informed Louis that morning that they were finally tapering her off the hydrocodone they’d prescribed and switching to ibuprofen instead. Louis knew that that was a good thing, that it meant she was progressing quickly in her physical recovery from the surgery, but he couldn’t help but worry about the pain he knew she must be in.

That became a lot more evident over the course of the morning, as Harry’s texts and tweets progressively got shorter and less coherent. When Louis called her over lunch, she was already sobbing when she picked up the phone.

“Sorry,” she cried into Louis’s ear. “Gemma went to go see if they’ll give me any more ibuprofen. I’m fine, I promise.”

“You don’t sound fine,” Louis replied dubiously. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah,” Harry hiccupped. “Just hurts a lot. Crying helps, I think.”

Louis wasn’t convinced of that, but he wasn’t about to argue with her. “I’ll be back tonight,” he reminded her instead. “I’m gonna drive straight to the hospital after I land, so.”

“If I’m asleep already, just wake me up,” Harry told him. Her voice was starting to level out a bit now, like just the distraction from her pain that talking to Louis had provided was already starting to make a difference.

Louis rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to do that,” he replied. “You need to rest. I’ll be there either way.”

Harry sighed. “I miss you,” she said forlornly, as though there were days, or even weeks, between the two of them meeting again, and not just a handful of hours.

“I miss you, too,” Louis echoed. “I’ve got to head out now, but I’ll keep you all posted on when I land, okay?”

“Okay.”

And with that, Louis hung up and headed back to the conference room to finish up the last training session of the week with a new spring in his step.

It was harder to sit still through the final presentations than any of the ones that had gone before. Louis felt like a kid on the cusp of summer vacation, anxiously waiting for the bell to ring so he could dash out of the classroom and leave education in the rear-view mirror. The prospect of taking two back-to-back flights totaling nearly five hours shouldn’t have been so exciting, but Louis just desperately wanted to be back home. And for him, that meant being with Harry, even if she was stuck in a hospital on the other side of town.

Finally, all the clerks and junior attorneys were officially released from their week of torment. Louis said hasty goodbyes to everyone he knew he would have to look in the face when he returned from his extended vacation (which wasn’t really much of a vacation at all, considering the fact that he still had to work from his office at home to keep up with his caseload) before slipping through the side doors and booking it straight to his hotel room to retrieve his belongings. He called for a ride to the airport from his room, and by the time he made it downstairs and out to the front sidewalk, the car was idling right there in front of him, ready to go.

Louis was missing a company mixer in the evening to fly back as soon as possible—thankfully, still on the firm’s dime—which meant he was missing out on vital opportunities to network with some of the senior attorneys at the firm. He told himself it was worth it, though, to get back to Harry nearly a full day sooner than he would have if he’d flown back with the rest of the company instead.

There was virtually zero traffic to deal with on the way to the airport, and once Louis got there, he made it through security and to his gate with no issues whatsoever. Before too long, he was in his seat on the plane, waiting for take-off with his eyes closed and headphones over his ears. In just over five hours, he’d be at Harry’s bedside. All would be right in the world again.

Approximately three hours later, Louis landed in Phoenix. And that’s when things took a turn.

When all was said and done and Louis finally found himself in the back of another car on his way to the hospital from LAX, it was nearly midnight, and Louis was more than a little rattled by the nightmare that had just occurred.

Everything was fine now, Louis attempted to reassure himself as the car he was in crawled up the freeway to his intended destination. His connecting flight to LAX had been delayed by nearly an hour, and then after he’d finally managed to get on the flight, someone had collapsed in the back of the plane and they’d almost had to turn back around again. But he was almost there now, and it was _fine_.

Louis had been to the hospital up in Northridge only once before—when Daisy and Phoebe had been born. He barely remembered anything about that day apart from being picked up early from school and being driven to the hospital, and he had no recollection of what the building even looked like, just the tiny faces of his sisters as they were placed gently into his arms.

He had a feeling he’d remember the place itself after this.

Louis’s hand had left sweat streaks against the door handle as he endured the long drive from LAX to Northridge Hospital, but even when he finally arrived, there was no relief for his nerves.

Harry was on the third floor; Gemma had texted him right after Harry had finally been moved from the recovery center after surgery and into a private room. Louis pulled up the text on his phone as his driver approached the hospital, and he kept stealing anxious glances at the screen as he rode the elevator up, as though paranoid that the information would have somehow changed in the five seconds since he’d last looked.

Harry was lying in her bed with the covers drawn up around her waist when Louis tentatively opened the door to her hospital room after giving a quiet warning tap to let her know he was coming in. She was dressed in a pale purple hospital gown and her hair was a mess, all frizzy and coming out of her braid after days spent without any kind of maintenance. Louis was momentarily irritated by that, and then realized that Harry probably wouldn’t have wanted Anne or Gemma to fuss over her any more than they undoubtedly already were.

“Hey,” Louis said in a soft tone as he approached the bed. He took a seat next to her and peered over at the journal she had propped up in her lap. “What’s that?”

“Bucket list,” she replied in a tone that was still a bit more gravelly than her usual pitch.

Louis raised an eyebrow. “What’s on it?” he asked, curious.

Harry tilted the journal toward him so he could see an empty page. “I couldn’t think of anything,” she admitted sheepishly.

Louis scooted onto the edge of the chair, getting as close to Harry as possible without making any kind of direct contact between them. He wasn’t sure yet where and how he was allowed to touch her, so he thought it was better to be safe than sorry. “Why are you making a bucket list?” he wondered.

Harry shrugged. She put the end of the pen in her mouth, tapping it against her bottom lip in contemplation for a few seconds before removing it again. “It just feels like…I don’t know. I guess I realized I never really planned for the after, you know? Like every part of me was just focused on getting here, and now that it’s over with, I just feel kinda…lost, I guess.” She glanced over at Louis with a wry smile. “God, that made it sound so fucking depressing,” she added with a laugh. “I just want something to look forward to. Preferably something a bit less painful.”

“How are you doing, by the way?” Louis asked, changing the subject now that there was an opening to do so. “Pain-wise. And everything else, I guess.”

“Okay.” Harry’s voice was a bit more subdued now, and she didn’t look over at Louis as she spoke. “I haven’t thrown up at all since the first night, so that’s been good, but everything still feels really sore and gross.” She shrugged. “They took the bandages off a couple hours before you got here, but I still have to keep the packing in until tomorrow morning, I guess.”

Louis nodded. “How does it look so far?” he wondered. Obviously, he knew not to expect too much right away; the numerous therapy sessions Harry had dragged him to in the months leading up to this had prepared him well enough for the reality of surgery and what they had to look forward to in the aftermath.

Harry still didn’t meet his eyes. She shrugged again. “Was too afraid to actually _look_ ,” she finally admitted.

Louis’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at her confession, but he quickly schooled his features into a more neutral expression, not wanting to upset her. “Would you be okay letting me have a look instead?” he asked gently, trying to make it clear that it was just an option if she wanted it and that he wasn’t trying to pressure her into anything.

Harry glanced over at him with a worried frown and gave a tight nod. “But you can’t lie to me,” she quickly added as Louis got up out of the chair and moved over to where Harry’s legs made a lump under the blankets.

“Tell me to stop if I hurt you, okay?” Louis told her. “Even if it’s only a little.”

Harry nodded, but she didn’t say a word as he carefully folded the blankets up her legs. The hair there was already grown out a couple centimeters thanks to the fact that she hadn’t shaved since before she’d been admitted. Louis would offer to do it for her, of course, if that’s what she wanted, but it would probably be easier to just let the hair grow out until she was feeling better in general. It was hard to guess which way she’d go, but Louis would accommodate either decision to the best of his abilities.

Louis was careful about the whole process of uncovering her lower half, and he was meticulous about only lifting the blankets enough so that he could see underneath them. He kept his face frozen in a mask of perfect serenity, not wanting to alarm Harry if it turned out the results of her surgery had been unexpectedly gruesome.

“You’ll have to lift your gown a bit,” Louis prompted when he finally got to her hips.

Harry slowly, carefully, tugged her gown out of the way to reveal what lay underneath.

Well. It wasn’t pretty by any stretch of the imagination. But it certainly didn’t resemble what she’d had there before, which Louis knew was more important in the long run. And it looked normal—well, as normal as anything with a bunch of stitches holding it together could be, and god knows Louis wasn’t exactly an expert in normal female anatomy to begin with, but—aside from all that, it was every bit the perfectly average vagina they’d both been expecting.

“Is it bad?” Harry asked in an anxious voice, making Louis realize that he’d just been staring at her brand-new genitals in silence for several seconds.

Louis shook his head. “It looks good,” he reassured her. “Like, aside from all the bruising and stitches.” He smiled and helped her tug the gown back into place before unrolling the blankets down her legs again. “They did a good job.”

Harry’s head sank back against her pillow with a loud sigh. “Thank god,” she breathed. “I think I need to go back to sleep now. I was waiting up for you forever.”

“Yeah, sorry about that,” Louis said as he slid back into the chair at her side and reached across the railing to grab her hand. “You can sleep,” he told her. “I’ll be waiting right here when you wake up again.”

It didn’t take long for Harry to drift off with Louis sitting by her side. Normally, she liked to sleep on her stomach with her face buried in a mound of pillows, but that wasn’t exactly an option in her tiny hospital bed with a bunch of tubes still attached to her, so she’d made-do by stretching her arms up over her head, her mouth hanging open as soft snores fluttered out of her in time with her breathing.

Louis just stared at her for a long while, unblinking. Then the door opened.

Louis looked up, expecting a nurse but finding Anne standing there with a worried expression instead. Louis quickly got up and rushed over to meet her, careful not to disturb Harry on his way out.

“Hey,” he said in a low tone once there was a door between them and Harry and he was reasonably certain they wouldn’t wake her with their conversation.

“I was already on my way over when I got your text,” Anne explained. “I usually stay the night so Gemma can get up early for work.”

Louis nodded in understanding. Anne looked more haggard in this moment than he’d ever seen her before, but he supposed that was to be expected when she’d been spending her evenings in an armchair by Harry’s bedside. “How have things been?” he asked. He’d gotten brief updates the past few days, but it was a poor substitute for face-to-face conversation.

Anne sighed heavily. “I don’t think we really knew how hard it was going to be without you here,” she admitted. “Gemma’s managed, but she was in over her head at first. It’s a lot to deal with.”

Louis nodded along with her response. He could only imagine. “Well, I’m here now,” he offered. “I’m here for Harry every step of the way.”

“Good,” Anne said seriously. “She really needs that right now.”

Louis nodded again and shuffled uncomfortably, unsure if he should take that as his cue to duck back inside with Harry. “I know you drove all the way out here, but you don’t have to spend the night again if you don’t want to,” he said. “It’s not like I’m going anywhere.”

Anne smiled softly. “I’m all right,” she replied. “I can take the couch.”

Louis followed her inside again, the two of them treading carefully as they tiptoed past Harry’s bed once more. They settled into their respective seats, and Louis closed his eyes, trying to get a bit of rest but not really anticipating falling all the way asleep since he wasn’t the type to doze off anywhere but in an actual bed.

So Louis was surprised when he jolted awake several hours later to find a nurse huddled over Harry’s bed. He bolted upright, alarmed for a second by the sight before realizing that Harry was awake as well and having a quiet conversation with the woman while Anne still slumbered a few feet away.

“Everything okay?” Louis asked quietly as the nurse moved closer to start shifting Harry’s blankets over to one side of the bed.

Harry nodded tightly as she glanced over at him. “They’re gonna take out the packing and the catheter,” she explained, her expression taut with anxiety.

Louis moved over in his chair to be as close to her as possible and extended a hand for Harry to take. That’s when Anne finally woke up, her hair a mess as she blinked over at them in confusion before realizing what was happening. She quickly moved over to Harry’s other side and pointedly stared down at her daughter’s face as the nurse lifted Harry’s hospital gown and spread her legs a little wider.

“I’m going to take out the catheter,” the nurse warned. “It should feel slightly uncomfortable for a second or two.”

Louis winced pre-emptively in sympathy as he watched the whole process, but true to the nurse’s word—from what he could tell—Harry only squeezed his hand for a millisecond, her gasp only just louder than a whisper.

The nurse glanced up at Harry again once she was done. “The next part’s going to be a little worse,” she said apologetically. “Just try to breathe. I’ll be done as fast as I can.”

Harry’s grip on Louis’s hand suddenly became bone-crushing as the nurse swiftly unspooled a seemingly endless amount of blood-stained gauze out from between her legs. Her breathing came in rough pants as she waited for the nightmare to end, and then finally, it was over, and Harry’s hand went limp.

“Here’s some more ibuprofen,” the nurse said as she moved over to Anne’s side of the bed to administer it. “When you feel up to it, you should try walking around a little. If you have trouble going to the bathroom or end up wetting the bed, use the call button, okay? Do you want me to help you put on some underwear?”

Harry nodded weakly. Anne finally returned to her seat on the couch as the nurse helped Harry pull up the pair of soft disposable undergarments on with a pad lining the seat before giving her an ice pack to place between her thighs to help with the discomfort.

Louis finally relaxed into the armchair again and sucked in a quick breath once the whole process was over. “You doing okay?” Louis checked after the nurse was gone.

There were still tears in Harry’s eyes as she nodded and forced a smile. She gave him a quick thumbs up before slumping back against her pillow. “Peachy,” she replied.

This had been the end goal for Harry for a while, but Louis had the feeling now that they still had a long road ahead of them.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry’s transition from the hospital to life back at home wasn’t easy.

Louis had mistakenly assumed that the extra day they’d decided to keep Harry in the hospital would have been the worst of it—she’d been an anxious, distraught mess for hours, wanting nothing but to finally sleep in her own bed again—but he’d never been more wrong. Without the constant support of round-the-clock nurses to take care of Harry, Louis quickly discovered that he was expected to fill that role instead. And Harry wasn’t making it easy on him.

They arrived home from the hospital late in the evening, a few days before Christmas. Anne helped Louis walk Harry from the car and into the backyard, where the little casita house they lived in was located at the far back corner of the grassy back lawn, but the exhaustion had been so prevalent in her face that Louis had refused to let her help anymore after that.

“Leave it to me,” he told her, his arm looped tightly around Harry’s waist to keep her steady. Anne looked dubious, but she didn’t kick up a fuss before retreating back to the main house to relax for the rest of the evening.

Harry had been off the serious pain meds for a while, but she tended to be a bit out of it when the ibuprofen was actually working thanks to the endorphins constantly flooding her body in response to the near-constant pain she was in. Louis found himself struggling to steer her into the bedroom, as none of her limbs seemed intent on cooperating.

“Some help would be nice,” he finally grunted as they made their way over to the bed.

Harry didn’t reply, instead flopping down onto the mattress with a loud sigh.

“I need to put one of those pads down,” Louis reminded her before she could get too comfortable. “And you should eat something before you go to sleep.”

“Soup?” Harry asked hopefully as she gingerly rolled over onto his side of the bed.

Louis just nodded as he carefully arranged the pad (which had originally been intended as a pee pad for house-training a dog) in the space she’d previously occupied. He brought her the soup a little while later and sat with her while she ate it before making sure there wasn’t anything else she needed right at that moment.

“No,” Harry replied through a yawn. “I think I’m gonna sleep.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Louis said. He leaned down to press a kiss to her forehead and then got up to turn out the lights before heading back out into the living room to sack out on the couch in front of the TV.

Louis only half paid attention to the movie playing in front of him as he pulled up his Facebook app to make a post for everyone else’s benefit about Harry being discharged from the hospital. Once that was done, he turned his attention back to the screen, but he’d already lost the plot of the current scene and had to rewind it back a good five minutes or so to remind himself of what was happening.

Aside from the low murmur of muted explosions emanating from the TV speakers, the house was completely silent. For the first time since before he’d left for the training conference in Kansas City, Louis’s mind was just as quiet, too. He was too relieved at having Harry safe and sound and back at home again to feel much of anything else.

At some point he must have fallen asleep right there on the couch, because when Louis came to again the room had gone dark and he could feel Harry shaking him, her quiet sobs piercing straight through the haze of half-consciousness that lingered after his eyes opened.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked in a hushed voice as he sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Can’t sleep,” Harry sniffled, as though she were a child that had just woken from a nightmare.

Unfortunately, as Louis well knew, the nightmare was her own body right now, and waking up only made things worse. “I’ll go get you something,” he reassured her. “Go back to bed.”

Louis kept a healthy stash of weed on hand even though he didn’t smoke much anymore. It didn’t take him long to find a vape pen with a suitable blend of CBD and THC that he knew would put Harry out and keep her asleep through the rest of the night. In hindsight, he probably should have done that from the start, but it was too late to do anything about it now except fix the problem he’d already failed to prevent.

Once Harry was tucked in and the weed was starting to take effect, Louis excused himself to take a short shower before rejoining her. She was already asleep when he slipped into bed beside her, so he dimmed the brightness on his phone as low as it would go before checking his notifications as part of his customary bedtime routine.

The comments on his Facebook post were the generic well-wishes Louis had expected—until they weren’t. He’d never been reticent in the past about accepting friend requests from Harry’s extended family, because she didn’t have a profile and he figured it was a way for them to keep up with her, but now he was rethinking that whole concept, because one of them had left a comment on his post that made him sick to his stomach.

_Glad to hear Harry’s home again. Praying for his safe recovery._

Louis swiftly deleted the comment, unfriended the relative, and then tossed his phone aside before rolling over in bed to try and get some sleep.

The next day was the true beginning of their new normal.

Harry’s alarm had been set to go off four times a day, because now that she was out of the hospital, she needed to dilate often to keep her vagina open as it healed. The first demonstration performed by one of the nurses hadn’t been a good experience for either of them. Louis was already dreading helping Harry through the process again as soon as he woke up to the wind chime noise sounding from the nightstand.

Louis’s worries proved more or less correct. Harry, whose pain tolerance was usually freakishly high, cried through all twenty-five minutes of the excruciating dilation process. After the torture was over, Louis helped Harry into the bath to rinse off the blood and lube between her thighs, and while she was occupied with that, he took it upon himself to change the blood-stained pad on her side of the bed before going back into the bathroom to check on her.

“Peeing doesn’t hurt underwater,” Harry informed Louis in a matter-of-fact tone the second Louis walked back in. She’d had issues with relieving herself in the hospital ever since the catheter had been removed, so Louis chose to consider this a breakthrough.

“Well, that’s four times a day you can do it in the bath,” Louis pointed out.

Harry grimaced at the reminder that this wasn’t a one-and-done process, that she would have to repeat the hellish procedure ad infinitum throughout her recovery and beyond.

After a few days of helping her through it all, Louis could thoroughly sympathize. He was wiped out. The uneasy routine they’d developed after Harry’s discharge was taking its toll, and Louis really wasn’t sure how much more he could take.

Trying to make it through Christmas with Harry barely able to get out of bed was every bit as awful as Louis was worried it would be. They’d had to manage by cramming Anne and Gemma into the living room as Harry wasn’t feeling up to opening presents at the main house, and instead of attending the customary Tomlinson Christmas Dinner that night, Louis had sat on the couch alone watching another movie he didn’t give two shits about while Harry slept fitfully in the next room.

Louis was beginning to suspect that he wasn’t coping much better than Harry.

And it didn’t help that he still had work to contend with as well. Harry worked part-time at a bakery nearby, tending the cash register and doing deliveries when needed, so her three-month sick leave, as it were, hadn’t been too much of a blow to her boss, who owned the place, and she’d been able to get the time off without a hassle.

Louis, unfortunately, had a lot more on his plate as a junior attorney with less than a year of work at his particular firm under his belt. His boss had been kind enough to give him take-home assignments for the duration of his ‘vacation’, but it didn’t mean he had any less to do while he was at home making sure that Harry was recovering. He certainly didn’t have the time or mental fortitude to be at Harry’s beck and call for every tiny problem she wanted him to take care of.

Harry hadn’t gotten that memo yet.

“Louis!”

The upside—or downside, depending on how you looked at it—of living in the tiny annexed guest house in Anne’s absurdly massive backyard, was that no matter where Harry and Louis were inside the small space, they could easily get each other’s attention.

That had come in handy a lot the first few days that Harry had been home, as Louis could hole up inside the comfort of his own office knowing that he would hear Harry if she needed anything. What he hadn’t banked on was just how high maintenance she’d ended up being.

It wasn’t like he could truly begrudge her that fact—she’d had a major surgery a week and a half ago and was still a mess, physically and emotionally. Louis wanted to help her in any way he could. But he was struggling, too. Oftentimes, he ended up sitting in his office, staring at the wall, wishing he could scream without Harry hearing him. He imagined it was similar to the feelings of a first-time father with a newborn at home, but instead of a baby, Louis was responsible for a grumpy, bedridden twenty-three-year-old instead.

Louis sighed and slowly got up from his desk chair. He made his way to the bedroom in a tired daze. Harry hadn’t been sleeping well since she’d gotten out of the hospital, which meant he was up all hours of the night with her, usually trying to accommodate her reluctance to get out of bed for anything that wasn’t strictly necessary. Like water. Or edibles.

Louis became a little more alert and a lot less begrudging when he opened the door to find Harry on her back in bed in an all-too familiar position, with tears in her eyes. “You okay?” he asked gently. As much as the requests for all manner of minutiae were beginning to wear on him, the last thing Louis wanted was for this to be an actual emergency. He’d take any amount of crying-wolf over a necessary trip to the hospital any day.

Harry shook her head, her face pinched from the pain. “I think I tore something,” she confessed in a small voice. “It really hurts.”

Louis had to bite his lip to keep from emoting as he sat down on the bed in front of her. “Flashlight?” he prompted. Harry leaned over just a bit to grab it from the nightstand and handed it over. Louis sucked in a deep breath and steeled himself for the possibility that he might need to take her to the ER if Harry was right.

She still had the dilator in when he peered down between her legs. It was the green one, the larger size of the two she was supposed to use. There was blood streaking the visible part of the dilator and a bit around her thighs, but no more than there usually was when she dilated. That didn’t mean there wouldn’t be more as soon as the dilator was out, though, which was what had Louis worried.

“How long have you had it in?” Louis asked her.

“At least ten minutes. The timer hasn’t gone off yet.”

Louis nodded as he scooted a little closer. “Tell me if it’s too much,” he warned Harry as he carefully grasped the end of the dilator and began to ease it out.

Ease was one word for it, though it might not have been the one Harry would have chosen, judging from the grimace on her face and the way her fists clenched in the bedsheets. She’d told Louis when he’d asked that it was only slightly better on the pain scale than when her vaginal packing had first been removed. And unfortunately for her, she was stuck doing this four times a day until the doctor told her otherwise.

Everything looked like it should to Louis’s untrained eyes once the dilator was removed. The mint green piece of plastic was slicked up with quite a bit of blood and lube, but she wasn’t in any immediate danger of bleeding to death in bed—thank god. Louis had definitely had more than one nightmare about that when they’d first come home, when both of them had still been adjusting to the loss of no longer having a nurse on call twenty-four hours a day.

“Better?” Louis asked. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Harry to know her own body, but…pain could be confusing. And she was new to this particular type of pain. He just wanted to make sure there was something to actually freak out about before they did anything drastic.

Harry frowned as she gave a little shrug. “I guess?” she offered. “Can you see anything?”

Louis shook his head. “I can get the gloves if you want me to poke around a bit, but it doesn’t look like you’re actively bleeding anymore.” Seeing the look on Harry’s face at the prospect of having anything else up her vagina in the immediate future, he scrambled to find another solution to ease her fears. “How about I put a new pad down once you’re done douching and I’ll come check on you in a bit to make sure there’s no fresh blood, okay?”

Harry pursed her lips and gave a tight nod in answer. “Can you help me to the tub?” she asked.

Essentially used to the routine by now, Louis carefully walked her into the bathroom and provided a source of stability for her to lean on as she douched, peed, and showered. She smiled bright at him as he helped pat her dry with a soft bath towel.

“Feeling any better?” he asked her.

“I think so,” she admitted.

Harry waited until she was safely tucked back in bed before pulling Louis down to her so she could kiss him, soft and open-mouthed and slightly unfamiliar to Louis after going weeks now without anything more than an affectionate peck. He knew it wouldn’t lead anywhere, and he was grateful that his dick seemed to know it too, but it was still nice to be able to touch her like this again.

Suddenly, Harry pushed Louis away with a newly serious expression plastered on her face.

“What is it?” Louis wondered. Maybe she was in pain again, and something really was wrong.

“I made a grocery list,” Harry said instead. “Can you run over to Costco real quick? I’m almost out of the big pads. And then Stater Bros. on the way back?”

Louis couldn’t help but make a face. “How long is this list?”

Harry smiled sweetly as she reached over to hand it to him. “Please and thank you.”

Louis was beginning to think the kissing had been a pre-meditated bribe. “You have your phone with you?” he double-checked as he made his way to the bedroom door. “Panic button app?”

Harry rolled her eyes. “Yes, Dad,” she grumbled.

Louis held up his hands with a slight grimace. “Just making sure. I guess I’ll be back in a bit.” Less than an hour, if traffic was kind and the register lines were kinder, but even way out where they lived in Altadena, that wasn’t always a guarantee.

Louis waited until he was just about ready to leave before taking a glance at Harry’s list.

  * Pee pads :c
  * Extra soap and shampoo please (the spearmint one if they have it)
  * Vinegar
  * Distilled water
  * Paper towels
  * Panty liners/pads/etc
  * Chocolate toffee ice cream!!!
  * More soup



There were hearts doodled all around the slip of paper. Louis turned to grab his car keys from the kitchenette with a sigh. It was going to be a long three months.

Traffic wasn’t so bad on the way to Costco, where Louis picked up only the essentials before quickly departing. The register lines had a tendency to get pretty messy, and while most of Harry’s list could be obtained in bulk, they really didn’t have the space to stock that much stuff in their tiny little casita.

Things started to slow down a bit on the way out of the Costco parking lot, where Louis nearly had an accident (the other guy’s fault), before finding himself at the mercy of a never-ending string of red lights. When Louis finally got to Stater Bros., the hour he’d given himself had been whittled down to a mere twenty-five minutes, and even with the house just around the corner, that didn’t afford him much time.

Louis quickly navigated the aisles, nervously watching the store become more and more crowded with each passing minute. He worked methodically through the list, leaving the ice cream for last, and when he finally waltzed on down the freezer aisle, he was relieved at being almost finished with his task. Being away from Harry too long made him unbearably anxious.

Louis had his hand on the freezer door handle when a tap on his shoulder stopped him cold. He turned with a frown only to come face to face with the last person he’d ever expect to run into at the grocery store.

Jordan.

The law clerk was all smiles, like he didn’t realize how much of a travesty running into someone you know at the grocery store really was. From work, especially, and it was worse because Louis didn’t particularly like any of his coworkers, and he barely even knew Jordan.

“Hey,” Jordan said chipperly as he extended a hand for Louis to shake. “Crazy seeing you here. I almost didn’t think it _was_ you, but—”

“Yeah,” Louis replied feebly. “Crazy. I didn’t know anyone else lived in the area, actually.”

“Oh, I don’t,” Jordan said, and Louis had to curb the sigh of relief that threatened to escape in response. “I’m actually just picking up some stuff for my mom.”

Jordan’s eyes flicked down to Louis’s basket, which was full of feminine hygiene items and microwaveable soups. Louis knew what it must have looked like.

“That’s nice of you,” Louis said placidly, hoping the conversation would end there.

But Jordan was not to be deterred. “Is all that for your girlfriend?” he asked bluntly. “Is she doing okay? You said she was in the hospital when we were at that training conference, right? She’s not still…”

Louis shook his head. “She’s home,” he replied in a curt tone. “Recovering, you know. She’s okay.”

Jordan nodded for a moment, looking as though he didn’t quite know how to continue the conversation. “Well, if you ever need anything…. I’m sure we could do something at the office to help you out.”

Louis forced a smile onto his face. “Thanks,” he said tightly. “But we’re fine. Don’t worry about it. I should probably head out, though.”

“Right, yeah, of course. Good seeing you.”

“Mhmm.”

Louis immediately made a beeline for the register, not wanting to accidentally run into Jordan again while perusing one of the other aisles. He had already paid and was halfway out to the car when he realized he’d forgotten something: the chocolate toffee ice cream. Shit.

Louis glanced back at the storefront, wondering if it was worth risking another encounter with his coworker just to go back and get it. Then he remembered just what a terror Harry had been off her hormones while she’d been recovering from her surgery. He had no choice. He had to go back and get the ice cream.

Louis kept a weather eye out for Jordan as he trekked back inside the store. He was aware that his relationship with his coworkers wasn’t exactly normal, but ever since Harry had come out, Louis had become a lot more protective of her, even more so than he had before when his big secret had been that he was gay—which had never been that much of a secret at all. One bad experience with someone in college had been more than enough to convince Louis that Harry was off-limits for anyone he didn’t trust with his own life.

It would have been easier if he could talk about her the way any other straight guy at his office talked about his own wife or girlfriend, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the way the world worked. There were a few too many outspoken assholes at Louis’s office to even consider it.

Louis was only fifteen minutes later than he’d wanted to be when he arrived home, and thankfully, Harry was still in bed where he’d left her, looking none the worse for wear despite his extended absence. He dished her up a bowl of ice cream upon request, thankful that he’d braved going back in for it now.

Louis settled into bed beside her once the bowl was in her hands. He took a deep breath, steeling himself for a conversation they should have had before Harry had gone in for surgery. “Babe, I think we need to talk about something.”

Harry paused, the spoon halfway to her mouth. “Okay…” she said uncertainly.

Louis couldn’t look her in the eye as he replied. “Someone from my work keeps asking about your surgery, and I don’t really know what I should tell him? I know I could just tell him to fuck off or whatever, but it seems easier to just give people a simple answer if they ask.” He glanced up with a pleading expression to find Harry staring at him with narrowed eyes over her bowl.

“Why can’t you just tell him the truth?” Harry retorted. “You know I’m not ashamed of it.”

Louis sighed. “I’m not ashamed either,” he told her, “but it’s not that easy. If you really want me to…then I will, but—”

Harry let out a frustrated little huff. “I don’t know, just say I had a hysterectomy or something, I guess,” she finally answered. “At least that way, no one will ask you when we’re planning to have kids.”

Louis winced. He knew Harry wouldn’t be happy when he asked, but he hadn’t anticipated her being this upset about it. “I’m sorry, babe. I just don’t want to risk anything.” Louis had more than one stress nightmare before the company Christmas party he’d brought Harry to last year, about someone somehow finding out she was trans and announcing it to the room at large right there in the middle of the party. It was a ridiculous concept, but the truth—the possibility of Harry’s identity circling through the rumor mill at work—wasn’t so far off.

“I know,” Harry replied quietly. She placed her spoon in her mouth and leaned forward to gently bump her forehead against Louis’s, like a cat. “We’ll talk about it if it comes up again,” she decided. “How about that?”

Louis nodded, relieved that she no longer seemed angry. “Sounds like a plan.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

It had been three weeks since Harry’s surgery, and things were getting better, slowly but surely. That didn’t mean there weren’t still hiccups in their daily routine, though.

Harry was taking up a lot less of Louis’s time recently, freeing him up to do the bulk of the work he’d been assigned during his time out of the office. But sometimes she’d find herself in a bad mood because of some small thing or another, and there was almost nothing Louis could do to snap her out of it once they reached that point.

So he mostly tried to focus on prevention where and when he could.

Step number one was keeping a better eye on Harry. When left to her own devices—like she’d been the majority of the first week, when Louis had holed up in his office because he thought she’d appreciate it if he didn’t hover constantly—she tended to feel neglected, and when Harry wasn’t getting enough attention, she got crabby. Louis had quickly changed things up after identifying the pattern, and now they spent most of the day in the living room together, with Harry on the couch in front of the TV or her computer, and Louis on the recliner with his laptop out. It had gotten easier to tune out the background noise while he worked after a few days, but it had been difficult at first.

Step number two was keeping Harry well fed. Louis was convinced that she was even worse about this because she was going without her hormones, but even when things were relatively normal, Harry was often the type to get hangry. Louis was keeping her fed with a steady supply of meal-prep that he’d put together with Anne’s help, and when they had the opportunity, the two of them would walk over to the main house to eat dinner with Anne. Louis was also diligent about making sure that Harry never ran out of her favorite snacks, lest disaster strike.

Step number three was pain management via Louis’s weed stash, but he was mainly trying to save that for the evenings so that Harry’s sleep schedule would remain somewhat normal. She certainly needed all the rest she could get, but that didn’t mean it was a good idea to let her doze on the couch all day long.

Unfortunately, there was only so much Louis could do. Some things just weren’t under his control. So when Harry started to show warning signs of a meltdown (even the tiniest hint of one), Louis snapped to attention and immediately tried to find a solution.

“I’m missing my hair appointment this week,” Harry announced loudly from the couch. It seemed like a perfectly innocent statement, and there was nothing in her tone to indicate that anything was amiss, but Louis knew better by now.

Louis peered over the top of his laptop at her warily, his eyebrows raised in a questioning expression. He wasn’t sure why she even needed hair appointments in the first place, since her long curls always looked exactly the same to him every time Gemma brought her home afterward, but she’d always been insistent that the salon trips were a necessary expense.

“Well, do you want to make another one for next month instead?” Louis asked gingerly. “Going out for an hour or two should be okay by then, right?”

Harry’s face creased into a pout. Evidently, Louis’s response hadn’t been the one she was fishing for. “I need a haircut _now_ ,” she insisted.

Louis rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his spreadsheet. If a tantrum was imminent despite his efforts, then he wasn’t going to waste his energy trying to appease her. “Chopping off one millimeter of hair isn’t a haircut, H.”

“Louiiiis,” she whined pathetically. She was surrounded by cans of sparkling water that she was now perfectly capable of taking to the recycling bin herself, but Louis knew he’d end up doing it for her just as soon as he was finished with his work.

“What?” Louis snapped back in an exasperated tone. “I can’t make you get better any faster, Harry. You need to stay home and rest.” He was still staring at his laptop, but when the silence on Harry’s end stretched on longer than he expected, he looked up again to find Harry gazing back at him with angry tears pooling in the corners of her eyes. “I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Louis said in a soft voice as he carefully set aside his laptop and moved over to sit next to her on the couch. It was the exact opposite of what he’d intended, but now he had to deal with the consequences of his short temper.

“You didn’t have to be so mean about it,” Harry grumbled into Louis’s armpit as he slung his arm over her shoulders. She was dressed in a fluffy purple bathrobe, practically the only thing she ever wore now that she had an excuse not to wear any real clothes at home, and Louis scratched his nails over the fuzzy fabric covering her arm, trying to comfort her.

“I know,” he said. “I’m sorry. I can try cutting it for you if you want? Or maybe your mom could do it?”

Harry sniffled loudly. “Can you maybe…could you ask Lottie to come and do it?” she asked in a quiet voice.

Louis sucked in a deep breath. “Babe, I don’t think it would be fair to ask my sister to come all the way up from San Diego to trim your hair.” He reached up to grab a handful of it himself, frowning at how limp it felt under his fingers. It wasn’t like Harry hadn’t been washing it regularly. She showered two or three times a day thanks to having to dilate and keep herself almost immaculately clean downstairs, and Louis had been the one helping her shampoo and condition more often than not. “What’s this really about?” he wondered. Because a simple haircut definitely wasn’t the reason Harry seemed so upset.

Harry crumpled in on herself a bit, her shoulders sagging with a quiet sigh. “I just feel gross,” she admitted. “I look gross, and my hair’s always disgusting, and I don’t have the energy to make myself look or feel good anymore, and I’m _tired_.” She glanced up at Louis with an apologetic expression. “I know you offered to help, but no offense, you’re not very good at all that stuff.”

Louis made a face, but he knew Harry was right. Even growing up with five younger sisters hadn’t instilled much more than a basic knowledge of how to brush and braid hair. He definitely didn’t possess anything near Lottie’s level of expertise.

“I’ll call her,” Louis promised. He shook his head. “She’s gonna make me do her taxes again for free in return, so it better be worth it.”

Harry laughed and slumped back against his chest with a little hum of satisfaction. “Thanks, Lou.”

Louis tilted her head back so he could kiss her temples and then stroked a hand through her hair. “Love you,” he said in answer. He didn’t think there would ever be a time that was no longer true.

But in times like these, words only went so far. Louis got up promptly, leaving his work half-finished on the coffee table, and took his phone outside to call Lottie so that Harry wouldn’t have to pause what she was watching on the TV.

Outside the weather was brisk (Harry would have called it ‘fucking freezing’), but the sun overhead warmed Louis enough as he sat down on the patio swing in the grass that he felt no need to change into anything more than the t-shirt and gym shorts he’d been wearing nearly every day during his stint at home with Harry. Just one of the many benefits of an LA winter.

Lottie worked unpredictable hours as a stylist, so Louis was already banking on her not answering. If everything played out correctly, he’d go back inside and tell Harry he couldn’t reach her, and like many of Harry’s whims, she’d forget about it before another opportunity to call presented itself. Problem solved.

Lottie answered on the second ring. “It’s not bad news, is it?” she asked in a dry voice.

Louis rolled his eyes and slumped back against the armrest on the right side of the swing, swaying it back and forth with his foot as he answered. “Can’t I call just to see how you are?”

“You didn’t, though.”

“No, I didn’t.” Louis sighed and sat up again. “I need a favor.”

“What kind of favor?” Lottie sounded understandably wary.

“The kind that involves you and Tommy driving up from San Diego for the day.”

Lottie echoed Louis’s sigh with one of her own. “Why, exactly?”

“Harry,” Louis replied simply.

“Ah. Right. How is she, by the way?”

“Okay.” Louis didn’t want to sugarcoat it, especially not when he was asking his sister to make a ludicrously long drive just to cut Harry’s hair and make her feel a bit better about herself for a day. “There’s been a few setbacks, but I think it’s normal. She’s been a little depressed lately, and uh…I don’t know.”

Lottie hummed sympathetically. “You guys are having a party for her pretty soon, right? I saw it on Facebook; if you want, I could talk Tommy into going up for that.”

“Really?” Louis sat up a little straighter. “Could you come earlier that day? She wants a haircut, apparently, but I think she really could just use some pampering. I don’t know if it’s just being off hormones or what, but she’s been a mess lately.” Louis also suspected that Harry just wanted some company that wasn’t Louis or her mother, but Lottie didn’t really need to know that part.

“In what way?” Lottie, who could never resist the opportunity to give any sort of beauty or hygiene advice, was clearly intrigued by Louis’s dilemma.

“She just said she feels gross, and I don’t know, I guess her hair has been a lot greasier since she got out of the hospital? It’s not like she isn’t washing it.”

“How often is she washing it?” Lottie asked, the note of skepticism in her voice clearly audible even though Louis had no idea what he’d said to put it there.

“Well, she has to shower like three or four times a day,” Louis explained. “So at least…twice? Sometimes she takes a bath instead.”

Lottie made a frustrated noise into the receiver. “She’s washing her hair too often,” she explained with another heavy sigh. “Try going every other day, and have her keep her hair dry when she showers. She should probably not shower that often either, or at least, make it quicker and only use cold water. I’m sure she’s not doing her skin any favors either.”

“Um…I’ll tell her that,” Louis said dubiously, even though he had no clue how he was supposed to break that sort of news to Harry with her newly sensitive hair-trigger mood swings. “And I’ll tell her you’re coming up for the party to help her out?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Lottie replied. She cleared her throat and quickly changed tacks. “And before you go—”

“Yeah?” Louis’s brows furrowed in worry. Lottie wasn’t the type to have a conversation over the phone over nothing, especially with how busy she usually was. So the fact that she apparently wanted to talk about something else—something that didn’t have to do with Harry—was mildly concerning.

“It’s not anything bad,” Lottie said, laughing lightly. Apparently, she knew Louis too well. “I just wanted to warn you before you got the invitation in the mail.”

“Invitation to what?” Louis asked. He still wasn’t convinced that there was no need for worry.

“Bridal shower,” Lottie replied simply. “Tommy proposed.”

Louis blinked a few times. He was speechless for several seconds before finding his voice again. “He what?”

“Oh, please don’t tell me you’re going to do the whole macho big brother thing. I know you’re like, straight now, or whatever, but you _like_ Tommy, remember?”

“I distinctly remember telling you that I thought Tommy was ‘okay’,” Louis reminded her. “But no, I’m not mad or anything, I’m just surprised. I didn’t think he was really the commitment type.”

“We’ve been together longer than you and Harry have,” Lottie pointed out.

“Yeah, but still.” Louis sucked in a breath and did his best to process the fact that his younger sister was engaged. If he was being perfectly honest, he sort of thought that he and Harry would end up being the first wedding in both of their families. It was just like Lottie to steal his thunder, though, so it made sense in a weird way. “Do you have a date?”

“Not an exact one, but we were thinking summer. June, maybe. Or July.”

“That soon?”

Louis could practically hear Lottie rolling her eyes over the phone. “Dating for three years,” she emphasized. “Besides, it’s just gonna be a backyard wedding at the old house with family and stuff. I don’t think we need that much time to plan.”

“Does Mom know?”

“Called her first thing,” Lottie reassured him. Louis was relieved. Out of all of the kids, Lottie was often the most at odds with Jay as the eldest daughter, and their relationship was sometimes a bit strained as a result. “I’ve been working my way down the list, trying to get everyone before the invitations to the bridal shower show up.”

“Do you mind if I tell Harry?” Louis wondered. “It might cheer her up.”

“Go for it,” Lottie told him. “And don’t forget the other stuff I told you.”

“I won’t, I won’t.”

After that, Lottie quickly said her goodbyes before rushing off to some work thing or another. Louis still didn’t comprehend how she managed to ingratiate herself to the rich and famous down in San Diego after only having lived there for just over a year, but somehow she’d managed to find herself more work as a personal stylist than she knew what to do with.

Now that the errand he’d been given had been achieved, Louis sat back in the swing and pushed off, letting it sway back and forth as he took in the overwhelming solitude of Anne’s heavily shaded backyard. He watched the leaves on the trees hanging over the fence rustling in the wind, almost hypnotized by their movements. For a moment, he could almost forget that in a few minutes he’d have to return to Harry’s side in addition to somehow managing to finish the day’s workload before they needed to eat.

A flash of movement caught Louis’s attention out of the corner of his eye, distracting him from his makeshift meditation. It was Anne, walking out onto the patio and shutting the sliding door behind her before heading over to where Louis was sitting with his feet dragging through the grass. He waved at her as she approached, and she waved back with a soft smile.

“Saw you on the phone from the kitchen,” she explained once she was a bit closer, “but I didn’t want to interrupt.”

“It was just Lottie,” Louis explained. “I’m trying to arrange some plans for the party.”

Anne nodded and glanced over at the casita in the back corner of the lot, where Harry was still shut up inside. “Do you think she’s up for coming over to the main house for dinner?” she asked. “I was thinking of making some brussels sprouts and macaroni. It’s probably been a while since she’s had it.”

Louis nodded sheepishly. He could get by in the kitchen, but a lot of Harry’s favorite dishes were completely out of his league. It was one of the benefits, actually, of living within walking distance of Anne. Once they moved out into their own place, they’d both have to pick up the slack in the cooking department.

“I think that’s fine,” Louis told Anne. Usually, there were obvious signs if Harry wasn’t feeling well enough to spend time over in the main house, but she’d been doing okay pain-wise throughout the day so far. “Give us about an hour?” Louis decided. “I should probably finish up with work.”

“Sure thing. I’ll text you when everything’s ready.”

“Cool.”

With that, Anne turned around and headed back toward the main house, while Louis finally resigned himself to the fact that he couldn’t ignore his responsibilities any longer. With a long sigh, he climbed out of the patio swing and trudged back over to the casita, where work and Harry (aka more work) awaited.

Louis opened his mouth to announce to Harry their new dinner plans almost as soon as he pushed open the front door to the casita, but he was surprised to find the front room empty when he walked inside, the couch where Harry had been lounging for most of the afternoon now vacant and abandoned.

“Harry?” Louis called out cautiously. There was a muffled answer coming from the bedroom, so he headed in that direction and shortly found Harry curled up in bed, playing some sort of game on her phone with a blanket wrapped around herself like a cocoon. “You okay?”

Harry didn’t look up at him as he entered the room. “Did you talk to Lottie?” she asked, dodging Louis’s question completely.

Louis moved a bit closer and perched himself on the edge of the bed, right next to where he guessed her knees were denting the duvet. “I did,” Louis replied. He was annoyed on principle by how difficult Harry was being, but he was determined to stay calm and prevent things from escalating. “And speaking of Lottie, I have some good news to share with you if you feel like actually having a conversation.”

Harry’s fingers faltered against the screen of her phone. Finally, she tucked it under the pillow and rolled over onto her back to stare up at Louis. “I’m fine,” she told him. “I’m just bored.”

“Well, your mom’s making dinner soon,” Louis told her. “So we can get out of the casita for a bit if you’re feeling up to it.”

Harry perked up immediately at hearing that and nodded her approval without even having to be told that Anne was making one of her favorite meals. It’d be a nice surprise, then, Louis thought to himself.

“Also,” Louis continued, “Lottie just told me that Tommy proposed.” He let the announcement hang in the air, waiting for some sort of reaction, but none of the enthusiasm he’d expected was present in Harry’s features. “What’s wrong?” he pried, frowning.

Harry shrugged. “Just thought—” She sighed and shook her head. “Never mind. It’s stupid.”

“It’s not,” Louis insisted. “I can’t do anything to fix it if you don’t tell me.”

“You can’t fix it anyway,” she replied with a scowl. “I’m just…tired of having to delay our lives because we can barely afford all my transition shit. And that’s with Ben’s help. I guess it’s just…I don’t know. It’s fine. I’m happy for her.”

It was a jealousy thing, then. Or self-pity, Louis guessed. They’d had this discussion many times before, and Louis had made it clear again and again that he wasn’t upset about the financial sacrifices they’d had to make so that Harry could be comfortable in her own body. Apparently, she _was_ upset.

“So what if we wait a little longer?” Louis shot back. “We’re over the hump now, babe. We’ve got plenty in savings and we’re almost to the point where we can start looking at a house. In LA. Which is more than most people our age can say. We’re lucky, from a millennial standpoint.”

That got a begrudging smile out of Harry, which was the most Louis could hope for considering the depressive episode she seemed firmly entrenched in. Then Louis’s phone buzzed in his pocket, an hour earlier than he’d expected it to.

It was a text from Anne, but not the one he’d been anticipating later on. _Gemma’s new boyfriend is in town, so they’ll both be at dinner too. Please let Harry know._

Louis showed Harry the text and decided not to comment on the sour face she made after reading it. “I guess just make sure you’re ready to go in about an hour,” he told her as he stood up again. “I’m gonna finish up with work so we have the rest of the night to hang out after we eat, okay?”

Harry nodded. “Okay.”

Dinner was a tense affair, which was the exact opposite of the atmosphere Louis wanted to cultivate for Harry while she recovered. It was unavoidable, though; the first thing Michal said when he walked in the door was, “Can I hug you?” to Harry, which was mystifying but seemingly benign until he explained that Gemma had told him that Harry was recovering from surgery and that he didn’t want to accidentally hurt her.

“I’m fine,” Harry told him through a forced smile before politely hugging him back.

Louis looped his hand in hers and kept a tight grip on it as they proceeded to the dining table, where Anne had already set their places and laid out the meal in the center so they could self-serve in turns.

Michal was loud and boisterous in his dinner conversation, dominating most of the discussion with anecdotes about his job in New York City as a writer and photographer. Louis was only grateful for his seemingly endless stories because it at least took any focus off Harry for the time being, who looked miserable as she slowly ate bites of her macaroni and sprouts.

There wasn’t anything wrong with Michal, really, in Louis’s opinion, but it did seem like bad timing on Gemma’s part considering how fragile Harry still was (emotionally) after her surgery, as well as the fact that all of them barely knew the guy—certainly not well enough that Louis would have felt comfortable disclosing Harry’s status to him yet, though it was hard to say what Harry’s feelings on the matter were.

Louis started to get a better sense of that when Michal excused himself to use the restroom between dinner and dessert, allowing Harry to shoot her sister a dirty look across the table just as he turned his back to leave the dining room.

“You shouldn’t talk about me with him,” Harry hissed at Gemma as soon as Michal was out of earshot.

Gemma looked surprised by the rebuke. “Should I just pretend you don’t exist?” she shot back. “All I told him was that I was spending a lot of time in the hospital after your surgery. That’s it!”

Harry wasn’t appeased by Gemma’s response, and her scowl deepened. “You barely know him,” she insisted. “Just leave me out of it.”

Louis watched the argument fly between them while desperately praying for either Anne or Michal to return just so they’d stop. They weren’t saying anything new, either, just rehashing the same thing over and over again like they were both children. Harry didn’t trust Michal enough to let him in on the family secrets; Gemma didn’t see why it was such a big deal to act like they were a normal family who didn’t have any secrets in the first place.

Anne was the first one to return, finally putting an end to the argument before it could spiral out of control. Michal returned a minute or so later, and the five of them consumed their desserts in relative tranquility.

Gemma and Harry didn’t have an opportunity to fight again for the rest of the night, which Louis was grateful for, but he found himself wondering as he steered Harry through her bedtime routine just why she’d reacted so badly.

“Can I ask you something?” Louis said delicately as he helped Harry unwrap one of the disposable vape pens she’d been using to help her fall asleep.

Harry sank into the pile of pillows under her head and nodded.

“Why don’t you want Gemma to tell Michal about you?” Louis asked. “You said you didn’t care about my coworkers knowing.”

Harry made a face, looking like she was already regretting giving her permission for Louis to even ask. “I don’t care because of me,” she explained with a grimace marring her soft features. “I just don’t want him to dump Gemma because of it.”

“Ah.” Louis sighed and climbed into bed next to her, mulling that predicament over in his head for a minute before crafting a response. “I think…that that’s very noble of you to worry about that,” he said, reaching out to cup her jaw in his hand. “But it’s not your responsibility to look after Gemma, and if Michal can’t handle knowing about you, then Gemma’s better off without him anyway.”

Harry slowly inhaled and then just as slowly exhaled before opening her mouth again to respond. “I guess you’re right,” she said in a fuzzy voice as she stared blankly up at the ceiling.

“Babe, I’m always right,” Louis replied with a smile. “Want me to get the lights?”

“Mhmm.”

“’Kay. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry woke up that morning in the worst mood Louis had seen her in since she’d gotten out of the hospital.

They were nearly at the one-month mark, and Harry had stopped taking her regular doses of ibuprofen entirely within the last day. She’d been downing enough to pose a risk for ulcers even when they worked as prescribed, and that had been less and less lately as her tolerance had rapidly shot up in the past few weeks. Louis was used to seeing her miserable by now. He wasn’t used to seeing her angry.

Louis felt like he was walking on glass as he helped her dilate, shower, and then get ready for her first post-surgery therapy appointment scheduled for later that morning. All the while, Harry snapped at him for everything she could find him at fault for, no matter how small the issue.

Louis took every jab in stride; it was clear that whatever the cause of Harry’s foul mood, arguing with her would only make it worse. And that was the last thing he needed right before getting into a car with her for more than an hour as they made the long drive to her therapist’s office in Long Beach.

Louis held the car door open for her to get in before they left; Harry didn’t even look at him as she got in. They drove in silence, with Harry staring out the window at the slow-moving traffic to their right. It wasn’t long before she started fidgeting in her seat, and Louis, who had been stealing glances at every opportunity, noticed immediately.

“You okay?” he asked, genuinely concerned that something might be wrong. He already had his hand on the turn signal lever in case it was serious enough that they needed to get off the freeway and pull over.

“Fine,” Harry snapped, without even turning her head back to acknowledge him.

Louis let it go after that.

The drive felt even longer than it had in the past with Harry silently seething in the passenger seat. Louis didn’t dare turn up the volume on the radio, too afraid that it would somehow set her off again, so the two of them slowly crawled through traffic until they finally reached the office complex in Long Beach that they’d been visiting together for the past year. Harry, even longer, but when she’d decided to have bottom surgery, she’d pulled Louis in with her for her appointments since it was something that affected them both.

They walked into the waiting room together, but as soon as Louis pushed the door open to let Harry by, she darted out of sight down the hallway, where the bathrooms were located. She hadn’t said anything on the way about needing to pee and Louis knew for a fact that she’d gone just before they left, but he shrugged it off and sat down in one of the cushy seats arranged in a C-shape facing a backlit aquarium and settled in to wait for Dr. Hawkins to invite them back.

The seconds ticked by, and still Harry didn’t return. Louis was actually starting to get a bit worried when the door to Dr. Hawkins’s office finally opened and the short-haired brunette woman walked out, pushing her glasses up into her hair as she peered down at her iPad. Her face brightened when she glanced up to find Louis there as he stood up to greet her, but it quickly creased into a frown again when she realized Harry wasn’t with him.

“She’s in the bathroom,” Louis explained sheepishly, before Dr. Hawkins could ask.

Dr. Hawkins nodded and threw a glance over her shoulder at the barely visible sliver of light under the bathroom door. “If you want to wait for her to finish up, you can just meet me in my office when you’re ready,” she offered.

Louis nodded, grateful that at the very least he wouldn’t be expected to hold a conversation with Harry’s therapist on his own.

Louis sighed as he watched Dr. Hawkins disappear back into her office before looking over at the bathroom again, impatient now rather than worried. He gave Harry a good thirty seconds and then walked over and knocked on the door. “Doc’s waiting for us,” he said, loud enough that he was confident she’d hear him over the sound of the fan going.

Finally, the door opened, and out walked Harry, her face bright red as she pushed past Louis without meeting his eyes.

Louis followed her into Dr. Hawkins’s office, but by the time they sat down in front of the older woman, Harry had regained her composure and seemed no worse for wear after her extended trip to the bathroom.

“Everything okay?” Dr. Hawkins asked pointedly as she slid her glasses back down onto her nose before rounding her desk to sit in the armchair facing the pair of them on the couch against the back wall.

Harry nodded tightly. “Sorry about the wait,” she said with a pinched smile.

“It’s not a problem,” Dr. Hawkins replied kindly. She tapped something on her iPad and then glanced back up at them. “First appointment since your surgery,” she confirmed. “How are you feeling?”

“Good,” Harry replied automatically. “Well, okay, I guess,” she then amended. “The pain’s still a problem, kind of.”

Louis would have said it was more than just ‘kind of’ a problem, but he hadn’t been asked his opinion yet, and he knew that meant he wasn’t being invited to give it, so he stayed silent for the time being.

“No regrets? Worries? Concerns?” Dr. Hawkins cleared her throat as she waited for Harry to answer. “It’s perfectly fine to have doubts or insecurities after the fact, even if this is something you were sure about beforehand.”

Louis glanced over to find Harry’s face creased into a slight frown as she stared down at the rug, apparently deep in thought over how to best respond. “I don’t think I regret it at all,” she finally replied, looking up again to meet Dr. Hawkins’s eyes. “It’s just the recovery stuff that’s hard right now, like not having my hormones and all that stuff. Mood swings. That sort of thing.” Harry crossed and then uncrossed her legs before slouching a bit on the couch, looking distinctly uncomfortable, as though she were sitting on a thumbtack.

“Okay,” Dr. Hawkins said as she tapped something on her iPad. “You mentioned mood swings. Is that something new?”

Harry nodded. “It’s just from not having estrogen,” she replied confidently. “I’m allowed to take it again starting next week, though.”

Dr. Hawkins tapped a few times again before looking up, this time staring straight at Louis, who had always been fairly intimidated by her steely gaze. “And how have you been coping?” she asked him, setting the tone right off the bat for how intensely Louis was about to be grilled about Harry’s surgery, which luckily, had been something he was prepared for.

“Fine,” he replied mildly, before adding, “It’s a lot of work right now, but it’s worth it.”

“Mhmm.” Dr. Hawkins blinked at him slowly. “You identified as gay before Harry came out, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you feel about Harry’s body now that she’s had surgery?”

It was the sort of question that Louis didn’t know if he’d have been comfortable answering even if Harry hadn’t been in the room, but the precedent for Dr. Hawkins’s startlingly invasive inquiries had been set long ago. Harry had never complained about them, at least, but she’d never been the one on the chopping block regarding the evolution of her sexuality.

“What do you mean?” Louis replied, stalling for time as he scrambled to come up with something that would satisfy both of them.

“Are you still attracted to her now that she has a vagina?” Dr. Hawkins asked. She arched an eyebrow. “Are your sexual thoughts the same as they were before her surgery?”

Louis blinked a few times and drew in a short breath. “Yeah, I mean—I’m still attracted to her, yes. I don’t really…I love her, so that matters more to me than anything else.” He was too afraid to look over at Harry to see her reaction to his answer, and truth be told, he hadn’t put that much thought into whether he still felt sexually attracted to Harry post-surgery or not. It was a little difficult to consider that sort of thing when all of his interactions with Harry naked were purely clinical in nature. He hadn’t really jerked off much since she’d been in the hospital either; just enough to clear the pipes without any regard to fantasy or actual pleasure.

Dr. Hawkins seemed satisfied with his answer, but evidently she wasn’t done interrogating Louis just yet. “And have you put any thought toward redefining your sexuality?”

Louis was silent for a few seconds as he puzzled that over. “No, I don’t think so,” he said slowly. “I’m dating Harry, so it doesn’t feel like it’s relevant, I guess.” It was the sort of thing he’d agonized over when she’d first come out, when Louis had been directly involved in the Pride organization at their college and his whole life had revolved around being gay. He didn’t regret any of that enthusiasm now, but it didn’t feel as important to him to define his life by his past relationships when Harry was right there in front of him. Did he still appreciate a good-looking guy if he passed him in the street? Sometimes, but so did Harry. It just wasn’t the focus anymore.

Dr. Hawkins finally turned to Harry again after that. “No issues with the relationship on your end?” she asked.

Louis held his breath, half-expecting Harry to bring up one of the dozen or so things she’d complained about just that morning as though any one of them had been the end of the world. She was always brutally honest in their therapy sessions, and less likely to worry about hurting Louis’s feelings than if they were in public or at home.

But Harry just shook her head, her expression totally calm. “Nope,” she replied easily. “Louis’s been great.”

It wasn’t until after the therapy session concluded and the two of them left the office that Harry’s bad mood returned with a vengeance. She ignored every attempt Louis made at engaging her in conversation, until finally he was forced to give up less than halfway through the drive home.

They stopped at an In N’ Out on the way back for lunch, and Harry ate only half of her burger before throwing the remainder of it back in the bag with nearly all of her fries. She stared out the window sullenly for the rest of the trip home and didn’t say a word as she got out of the car and marched straight into the guest house, leaving Louis to retrieve her garbage from the car before following her.

When Louis finally made it inside after getting rid of the fast food in the outdoor trash cans (they didn’t have the room in either their tiny fridge or the itty-bitty motion-controlled garbage bin that Robin’s son had bought them for Christmas), he found the door to their bedroom locked, which meant that Harry had retreated inside to sulk.

It was at that point that Louis decided something needed to be done. It didn’t seem very likely anymore that Harry was actually angry about him forgetting to put the toilet paper on the roll instead of the countertop or overfilling the garbage bag before taking it out or not rinsing his dishes properly before stacking them in the sink.

Well, he supposed she probably was mad about all of those things, but that they weren’t the reason she’d been so violently miserable all day.

Louis knocked on the bedroom door tentatively. “Harry? Are you gonna be in there for long?” If she decided to stay cooped up in bed for the rest of the afternoon, it would mean that Louis would have to walk all the way across the yard to use the guest bathroom in the main house if he needed to piss. “Harry, please, can you just talk to me? This cold shoulder thing isn’t getting us anywhere.”

It would have been easier to leave her alone to work it out herself, but Louis was committed now. He hadn’t gotten a response from Harry yet, but he parked himself on his ass in the hallway in front of the bedroom door, gently pleading with Harry to let him in.

A good fifteen minutes later, she finally relented, and Louis almost fell over when the door behind him suddenly opened. He scrambled to his feet and quickly darted inside as Harry returned to bed with her eyes clearly red-rimmed and teary from silently crying while Louis had been sitting outside their bedroom.

“I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Louis pointed out as he perched himself on the edge of the bed while Harry curled up under the covers. Her face went a bit pink, confirming that whatever it is she was upset about, it was something she felt embarrassed over. “Harry,” Louis tried again, “I’ve been with you every step of the way. Whatever it is, I’m not going to be mean about it, you know that.”

Harry winced a little as she sucked in a deep breath, her hands still clutching tightly at the duvet pulled up to her chin. “It’s, um, bathroom stuff?” she finally admitted.

Louis nodded in understanding. That explained why she’d been so reluctant to say anything. For how shameless she was about nudity and sex, even before she’d come out when they were still in school, Harry had never been the type to joke about bodily functions.

“Is it something you want me to call the doctor about?” Louis asked her.

Harry shook her head. “I Googled it and it’s normal, I guess…. It’s just uncomfortable.”

“What is?” Louis pressed, trying to be gentle about it even still.

Harry seemed reluctant to answer, but finally she opened her mouth again, voicing a sigh first before any more words came out. “Well, I was kind of constipated because of the pain meds at first,” she said slowly, “but now I’m just…gassy, I guess? It really hurts, like all the time, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going away.” She made a deeply unhappy face as she continued. “Apparently, it can take weeks for your intestines to readjust to being moved around, so.”

Louis genuinely had no idea she’d been dealing with any of that and felt like a bit of a shitty boyfriend for not realizing sooner. She’d been in his care for four weeks now. Louis had just assumed the grumpiness was because she was still having trouble sleeping, or because the ibuprofen she was taking just wasn’t working as well as it used to.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” Louis asked earnestly. He didn’t want to see Harry suffering any more than she had to, and god knows she’d suffered plenty in the past month.

Harry shrugged. “Can you pick up some Pepto-Bismol or something when you go to the store again?” she asked. “It’s been awful all day.”

Louis nodded. “Want me to go right now?” he asked.

Harry hesitated, then shook her head. “Later’s fine. Can you just—rub my back for a bit first?” she asked instead.

Louis nodded again and scooted up to her on the bed so he could easily reach. She turned over under the covers and laid completely still as Louis tugged down the duvet and pulled up her shirt so he could lay his palm flat against her bare skin, finding it warmer than he’d expected thanks to the fact that he was used to her body temperature running a bit cooler on estrogen.

“Better?” he asked after he’d traced countless circles against her spine.

Harry gave a sleepy hum in answer but didn’t respond for a few minutes, at which point she suddenly bolted upright in bed and started to move past Louis with a pinched expression.

“You okay?” he checked.

Harry nodded tightly. “Bathroom,” she said as she tossed the covers aside and quickly waddled into the en-suite.

She stayed locked in there for more than an hour. Louis tried to wait her out but ended up having to make the trek across the yard to use Anne’s bathroom after all.

Louis knocked on the backdoor as a courtesy first before walking inside. When he’d first moved in and they’d all still been getting used to the new way of doing things, he’d almost scared Anne into a heart attack more than once by walking into the kitchen while her back was turned. She knew to expect it now, but Louis still tried to avoid startling her if he could.

Luckily, Anne wasn’t anywhere in sight when Louis entered the house. He quickly made his way to the guest bathroom and ducked inside to do his business, only to run almost straight into Anne upon exiting.

“Shit, sorry,” Louis exclaimed as he reached out automatically to steady her.

“It’s fine,” Anne reassured him with a laugh before giving him a quizzical look. “Why are you using my bathroom?” she asked.

Louis hesitated before answering. “Harry’s got stomach problems?” he replied haltingly. “I guess the surgery messed stuff up so now she’s like…not feeling well.”

Anne nodded knowingly as they made their way into the kitchen. “Same thing happened to me when I had my hysterectomy,” she told Louis as she reached into the fridge to grab the pitcher of lemonade that she kept handy at all times. “Want some?”

“Please.”

Louis was surprised when Harry suddenly slipped into the kitchen through the back door a few minutes after he’d started his conversation with Anne, glancing suspiciously between Louis and her mother as though she thought they might be conspiring against her. She wasn’t that far off the mark, but it was the good kind of conspiring, in Louis’s opinion.

Harry clearly didn’t agree.

Anne lit up once she spotted her daughter. “Have a seat, dear,” she said chipperly as she turned to duck her head into the pantry. “I’ll make you some herbal tea.”

Harry’s face instantly soured. She shot a glare at Louis before staring down Anne again. “I don’t want herbal tea,” she grumbled. “I thought we were going to the store.”

“Well,” Louis said slowly, “if the tea works, wouldn’t it be better if you just….” He trailed off, sensing that Harry’s scowl wasn’t disappearing anytime soon. “Okay,” he said in defeat. “We can go to the store.”

Louis got the full brunt of Harry’s wrath once they were both strapped into the car and making their way down the street away from the house.

“Did you really tell my mom about my bathroom issues?” Harry hissed. She turned in her seat as much as her seatbelt would allow her, her eyes boring directly into the side of Louis’s head.

Louis hunched his head down into a tiny shrug, keeping his hands at ten and two on the wheel and his eyes forward as an act of avoidance more than as a penchant for safe driving. “I thought she might be able to help,” he replied meekly. “We could have at least _tried_ the tea.”

“Or you could just let me make my own decisions,” Harry muttered to herself as she settled back into her seat with her arms crossed over her chest now. “For once.”

“I’m sorry,” Louis told her, his hands still clutching the steering wheel for dear life.

Harry didn’t acknowledge the apology, and the rest of the drive was conducted in silence, much like the earlier journeys they’d taken earlier that same day.

When they reached the store, Harry made a beeline for the pharmacy section at a near jog, and Louis had to do the same to keep up with her. It was as they were turning in to face one of the over-the-counter medicine racks that Louis stopped short after coming face to face with Jordan for the second time outside of work.

At first, Louis had the crazy idea to turn around and sprint in the opposite direction. But there were a lot of things wrong with that plan, not least of which was the fact that Jordan had already spotted him, his eyes lighting up in recognition as he walked over to where Harry was leaning over to grab a bottle of Pepto-Bismol off the shelf.

Jordan tried to pass her just as Harry was straightening up again, and she jumped back in alarm straight into Louis’s arms. Jordan glanced at her with a slight frown before suddenly making the mental connection and smiling just as brightly as before.

“The girlfriend, right?” Jordan asked. “I work with Louis; I’m Jordan.” He extended his hand for her to shake, and Harry did so hesitantly, with her Pepto-Bismol clutched tightly against her chest.

“Hey,” Louis said with an uneasy smile. “Thought you said you didn’t live around here.”

Jordan nodded and let go of Harry’s hand, thankfully after only giving it an appropriately brief shake. “Running errands again,” he explained with a shrug. His eyes finally lowered to rest on the item Harry was holding before lifting again as he realized why the two of them were in the aisle for gastro-intestinal issues. “It was nice seeing you, though,” he quickly added, the awkwardness apparently getting to him before Louis could make an excuse to extricate himself and Harry from the conversation. “And nice meeting you, as well.” He nodded at Harry and then fled in the other direction, disappearing from view before either of them could concoct a response to his hasty exit.

Louis blinked a few times and then exchanged a bewildered glance from Harry, who turned her head to mirror his expression. They both burst out laughing right there in the pharmacy section before heading over to self-checkout, eager to leave before they could have the misfortune of running into Jordan again.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Today marked Harry’s one month-iversary of having surgery.

Well, not ‘today’, technically, because they’d had to delay the party until Saturday so that Zayn could come (and Zayn’s attendance had been paramount in making sure he and Harry remained friends, in Louis’s opinion), but they’d only missed the actual date by a few days, so it counted.

The party had been Anne’s idea originally. It was something she’d suggested as the days counting down to Harry’s surgery had slipped into the double digits, leaving both her and Louis to watch as Harry became more and more of an anxious mess. Louis had agreed that it was a good idea at the time, but maybe Anne had even more foresight, because one month later, it was clear that the party was now something of a necessity.

Harry was undeniably lonely, even with Louis around every hour of every day, and it was becoming increasingly more evident as the days went by that the boredom of being trapped in the tiny little casita in Anne’s backyard with nothing to do was starting to get to her.

Louis was hoping the party would shake things up in a positive way. They really needed something to change for the better, and soon. Because in the near future, Harry was going to have to adjust to a few more changes—and Louis didn’t envision any of those having a positive impact on her physical and mental health.

For the rest of today, however, Louis was trying to focus on the party, and the party alone.

From the second he’d woken up that morning, Louis had been receiving periodic updates from Lottie about the status of her trip from San Diego to Altadena, a more than two-hour drive. And Lottie despised making the journey; she only ever came up for Thanksgiving and Christmas (if she was even in the state at the time), and god forbid anyone ever ask her to visit at any other points during the year. The fact that she was coming all this way for Harry’s party without even asking Louis to do anything for her in return was kind of a big deal.

_Here._

There was little fanfare when Lottie finally pulled up in a shiny Audi outside Anne’s front gate, but Louis was quick to race outside to meet her, barely giving Harry a word in explanation as he zipped past her on the couch.

Lottie was already in the process of unpacking the car when Louis finished unlatching both gates so she could follow him into the backyard. He eyed the parked car suspiciously, wondering to himself why she was alone.

“Tommy didn’t come with you?” Louis asked with a frown as he shouldered two of Lottie’s bags—containing what, he didn’t know or care—before leading her across the grass to the casita.

“He came to LA,” Lottie replied, which didn’t clear things up at all. She glanced up once she realized Louis had stopped in the middle of the back lawn and was just staring at her, waiting for clarification. She sighed and let her duffel bag slide down from her shoulder to her elbow as she pivoted to face him fully. “We decided to sublet the apartment in San Diego,” she explained.

That wasn’t news to Louis, at least in the sense of Tommy’s career as a…rugby…or maybe, lacrosse…player? But from what he remembered, the playing season for Tommy’s team extended from late summer through the fall. It wasn’t even spring yet.

“Okay,” Louis said uncertainly. “So what does that mean?”

“We’re going to stay in town until the wedding,” Lottie told him. “Tommy took the Range Rover to Santa Monica to go apartment hunting for the day. We’re gonna find something month-to-month so I can stay here and help Mom with the wedding.”

Louis blinked at her a few times. “Tommy isn’t coming to the party?” he finally managed, still a bit confused by it all. Lottie’s life rarely resembled that of a normal human being’s, and everything she was telling him was just making it that much more difficult to understand what exactly she was trying to communicate.

“No,” Lottie said bluntly. She shifted her duffel bag onto her shoulder again and began marching toward the casita without any further clarification.

It took Louis a few seconds to register what had just happened. “Hey,” he called out, sprinting after his sister and grabbing her by the elbow to jerk her back around to face him. “Hey! What do you mean, he isn’t coming?”

Lottie looked visibly angry now, but she didn’t make any attempt to free herself from Louis’s grip as she answered. “I don’t want to have a whole conversation with him about why we’re even having this party,” she said in a hard voice.

Louis let go of Lottie’s arm, startled by the flash of anger that coursed through him in response to her explanation. He didn’t want to accidentally hurt her, even if she had just upset him. Deeply. “You haven’t told him?” he asked, taking care to keep his tone as calm and even as possible.

“No,” Lottie replied coldly. “I haven’t. And I’d rather focus on Harry tonight instead of keeping Tommy entertained at a party where he doesn’t know a single person. Okay?”

Louis nodded, deciding then that it was best not to argue the subject any further, even though it was unthinkable to him that Lottie had agreed to marry someone who didn’t even know that her sister-in-law was transgender. “Okay,” he said simply before following her the rest of the way to the casita to unload her stuff in the bedroom. It wasn’t his business, Louis told himself. Lottie needed to make her own decisions. And sometimes her own mistakes.

Harry was freshly showered and sitting in the living room in just her bathrobe when Louis walked in. Her eyes brightened when she spotted Lottie just behind him, and she catapulted off the couch with more enthusiasm than she should have exerted (in Louis’s opinion) before dashing over to hug the other girl tightly.

Despite the closeness in age between Harry and Lottie—relative to the gap between Lottie and Gemma, who had become fast friends almost as soon as they’d met—the two hadn’t really hit it off until after Harry had come out. They’d kindled a tighter-knit friendship when Harry had been struggling initially with her presentation and appearance, but then Lottie had met Tommy and moved out of the city entirely, putting an end to their sisterly bonding.

None of that seemed to matter to either of them now, though, as Lottie quickly dropped her bag to return Harry’s hug with every bit as much affection as she’d received.

“Shoo,” Lottie told Louis once she pulled away, waving her hand dismissively from over Harry’s shoulder. “We don’t need you hovering.”

“I could at least help you unpack,” Louis protested, but Lottie wasn’t having it, and Harry just shrugged in apology instead of coming to his defense.

Louis ended up banished to the main house, where he helped Anne in the kitchen with lunch before bringing two plates over to the casita for Lottie and Harry. He was greeted by his sister at the door, and despite his attempts to peer inside to see Harry, he couldn’t make out anything with Lottie blocking most of the doorway before she locked him out once again.

Louis stared at the closed door for a moment before sighing and making his retreat back to the main house. When he returned to the kitchen, he found that Anne had plated up their own food and had left it on the table for him to eat while she cleaned up the extraneous dishes left around the stove.

Louis was halfway through his meal when Anne joined him, a warm smile gracing her face as she sat down across from him and started to dig into her meal as well.

“What do we still have to do?” Louis asked between bites. The party wasn’t due to start for another few hours, but Anne tended to go all out for any sort of celebration, and Louis was sure there was plenty of work left in the meantime. Plus, it would serve as a good distraction while Harry was occupied with Lottie in the other house.

“The lights need to be put up,” Anne said thoughtfully. “And the tables from the garage can go out. There’s tablecloths in the linen closet; you can have your pick.”

“That’s it?” Louis checked.

Anne lowered her fork with a wry smile as she nodded. “No offense,” she said, “but I think I’d rather handle all the baking myself.”

Louis nodded in agreement. That was probably for the best.

Nevertheless, after Louis set up half a dozen tables in the grass (decorated with whatever tablecloths he could find that weren’t overly festive) and had nearly killed himself on the ladder while stringing up fairy lights along the fence and patio, he found himself back in the kitchen helping Anne with the food after all—though he’d been relegated to chopping fruit while Anne frosted the half a dozen cakes cooling on the island counter, all baked using different flavors of batter to please the various palates that would be in attendance that night

Harry was still shut up in the guest house with Lottie, and Louis hadn’t seen or heard anything from either of them since lunch. Louis was fine with that though, because the start of the party was inching ever closer, and he didn’t want to be distracted by trying to tend to Harry’s every whim while simultaneously trying to help Anne get everything ready.

For the most part, he and Anne worked quietly, the radio playing country music on low volume in the background. It wasn’t until the third cake had been successfully frosted (in blue, as a contrast to the first two pink ones) that Anne finally broke the silence.

“You’re going back to work soon, right?” she asked out of the blue.

Louis glanced up from what he was doing and nodded at her. “This week,” he replied. Despite her physical proximity to her daughter, Anne was good about giving Harry and Louis space. They only shared a couple meals a week in the main house, usually. Less, now that moving back and forth between the two was such an ordeal for Harry while she was still healing.

“And you think Harry will be okay by herself?” Anne asked.

Ah, so that’s what this was about. Louis nodded in reply. “I’m planning to take longer lunch breaks,” he added, “so I can come home and check on her during the day, but the doctor said she’s doing really well, so.”

Anne bit her lip and frowned down at the unfrosted cake sitting in front of her. “If you’re sure,” she said dubiously. “It’s just—” She stopped, suddenly going quiet and picking up the icing spatula to start working on the next cake, this one also blue like the last.

“What?” Louis wondered.

Anne let out a soft sigh. “I just worry about her,” she confessed. “She seemed so upset after the surgery, but she was better once you got back, and I just worry being alone all the time is going to be bad for her.” Anne worked, too, unfortunately, which mean that Harry really would be alone once Louis wasn’t around twenty-four-seven anymore.

Louis gave it some thought. “Yeah,” he finally decided. “You might be right. I’ll talk to her about it later.”

By the time all the food was set out in the backyard, including the cakes arranged in a trans pride flag color formation—though the sliced fruit adorning the sides sort of ruined the effect a bit—Harry and Lottie had finally emerged from the guest house, both girls in complimentary dresses, their hair elaborately braided and nails polished. Harry’s hands glittered in the sun as she walked over with a huge smile to meet Louis on the patio.

“Feeling okay?” he asked. Her physical comfort level had been a concern when they were arranging this party.

Harry’s head bobbed up and down frantically. “I smoked a lot of weed,” she admitted. “I feel amazing.” She flung her arms around Louis’s neck and slopped a wet kiss against his cheek, wobbling a bit as she let go again.

Louis laughed into her hair. That explained why she and Lottie had spent so much time cooped up in the casita, then.

Suddenly, Harry pulled away with a startled sound and a disgusted expression on her face. “Ugh, you need a shower,” she told Louis before pushing him toward the house she’d just left.

Louis caught her hand, tugging her toward him a bit wistfully. “Wish you weren’t all done up so you could join me,” he told her.

That was, of course, the exact moment that Lottie chose to walk by. “Gross,” she commented, her expression matching the one Harry had worn only seconds ago, and her reaction jolted Harry into a fit of laughter.

Harry tugged her hand out of Louis’s grip and slapped him on the ass for good measure. “Hurry up,” she told him.

Louis waved her off and jogged across the lawn to do as she’d asked.

When Louis emerged after his shower, dressed in clean clothes that were significantly nicer than what he’d been wearing before, he walked back out into the yard only to discover that Harry was nowhere to be found.

In fact, only Lottie was present, her feet dragging through the grass as she pushed herself slowly back and forth on the swing. Louis walked over to her and sat down, the two of them remaining silent for a few minutes before Lottie finally turned to face him with a curious look on her face.

“Can I ask something kinda awkward?” she said.

Louis was wary after the conversation they’d had when she first arrived, but he nodded anyway, bracing himself for whatever it was that Lottie wanted to know. “Sure,” he agreed.

Lottie’s face creased into an uncomfortable frown as she muddled her way through her query. “Have you and Harry….” She trailed off before trying again. “Are you guys like, having sex, still?”

Louis sighed deeply. He should have expected something like that, but truthfully, he really hadn’t seen it coming. “Besides the fact that Harry isn’t even supposed to um…exert herself,” he replied, stumbling over his words as he struggled to censor his reply in a way that felt more appropriate for a conversation with his younger sister, “it’s just…it’s complicated.” He pushed his feet into the grass, swinging them for a few seconds before the patio swing stilled once more.

“Okay,” Lottie replied slowly. “Well, I’ve had my fair share of experience with heterosexual sex if you need like, pointers, or something.”

Louis reflexively clapped his hands over his ears and made the loudest sound he could think of. “No offense,” he said after he was certain that Lottie wasn’t going to say anything else that would potentially scar him for life, “but I definitely don’t want sex advice from my baby sister.”

Louis was worried for a second that Lottie would take offense to that statement and assume that he was infantilizing her (and maybe he was, just a little bit, but it was hard to forget the fact that he’d been looking out for her since she was literally in diapers). But Lottie just laughed the comment off and climbed out of the swing, dusting her dress off as she set off in the direction of the main house.

“I’m gonna see if Anne needs anymore help,” she called back to him.

Louis didn’t bother to inform her that he’d taken care of pretty much everything that needed to be done before she and Harry had even finished, instead lingering on the patio swing long enough to watch as she walked into the house before finally getting up and following her inside to try and find Harry.

Louis found her in the front room talking to Liam and a girl Louis had never met before. Liam’s arm was around the girl’s waist, which meant that he was still taking his breakup pretty hard and was apparently committed to playing the field, as it were. Privately, Louis didn’t think Liam had the emotional fortitude to date as frequently as he did, with as many different girls, but once again, it wasn’t really any of his business how Liam chose to cope with being dumped by his high school sweetheart.

“You’re early,” Louis said cheerily as he walked over to wind his own arm around Harry’s waist, mirroring Liam’s position exactly. It was all very heteronormative of them, which Louis still found amusing after more than a year of being in a functionally-straight relationship for the first time since freshman year of high school.

“Yeah….” Liam scratched at the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. “I was worried about traffic,” he admitted. “I left really early. I can help you guys set up if you still need it.”

Louis wasn’t sure they did, but he nodded and gave Harry a quick kiss on the cheek before leading Liam out back to see what still needed to be done.

They ended up helping Anne put the finishing touches on the table decorations before just chatting for a while, Harry momentarily forgotten as Louis lost himself in their conversation. It felt like ages since he’d spoken to anyone outside of Harry’s immediate family, and it was refreshing to have an end to the repetitiveness of the routine they’d been forced into for the last month. Louis finally started to feel more excited about returning to work than dreading it, if only just to break up the tedium of being trapped in the casita every single day nearly all day long.

“It’s about time,” Liam finally said, tapping his watch.

“Right,” Louis replied as he reached out to place his hand over Liam’s shoulder. “Thanks, I guess I should probably go do the whole hosting thing.”

“I’m sure Harry would appreciate the help,” Liam said with a smile.

Louis nodded and darted back into the house. He found Harry in more or less the same spot he’d left her, though Liam’s date was long gone and there was a steady stream of people they knew making their way up the front walk instead. Louis quickly took up his place at Harry’s side, murmuring a quick apology for the delay into her ear as he waved at the first group of people to walk in the door.

“It’s fine,” Harry replied after they’d hugged everyone in turn before pointing them toward the backyard. She was smiling dopily through the open doorway, and Louis knew full-well that if she hadn’t been stoned out of her mind, she would have been far more annoyed by his tardiness than she seemed to be. “How long do we have to do this?” she asked, her smile replaced by a confused frown as she looked over at Louis.

He shrugged. “Thirty minutes, maybe?” Louis didn’t exactly host a lot of parties, but Anne had told them that personally greeting everyone was considered polite.

“Ugh.” Harry made a face that quickly disappeared as soon as the second group of people came walking up.

The steady stream of guests trickled to nearly nothing after only twenty minutes, with a single hiccup occurring when Harry leaned in to hug Zayn only for him to stand there frozen like he didn’t understand what was happening. Once another two minutes passed with no sign of life from the street, Louis decided to call it quits and hung a sign on the door directing people to the side gate if they happened to arrive any later.

“You good?” Louis double-checked. With Harry and weed, it was always a gamble.

“So good,” she replied breathily. “Sooooo good.”

Louis just laughed and put a hand on her back to guide her through the house so they could join their guests in the backyard.

Harry was a riot all night, her energy levels seemingly back to what they were before she’d gone in for surgery. It made Louis think that maybe Anne was right, and that the necessary isolation hadn’t been good for her. That meant he’d have to think of a solution for it quick, because he was due back into the office on Monday, and after that, Harry would be completely on her own for most of the weekdays, without even a car she could use to pop out for quick errands.

Louis put that out of his mind for now, trying to focus on enjoying the night with his and Harry’s friends instead, some of whom he hadn’t seen in what felt like months. Louis’s only job for tonight was to make sure that he and Harry both enjoyed themselves, and by the time things started to wind down, he was confident that he and Anne had been successful in their endeavor to cheer Harry up a little bit.

Harry had fallen asleep in the porch swing at some point during the last hour of the party. Louis was as gentle as possible when he lifted her out with Liam’s help, the two of them carrying her back to the guest house so Louis could put her to bed before heading back to the main house to clean up.

“You’re really good to her, man,” Liam said in a quiet voice as he watched Louis tuck her in. He clapped a hand on Louis’s shoulder when he straightened up again, and when Louis turned to look at Liam, he could see nothing but pure sincerity in his eyes. “I know it hasn’t been easy, but I’m really proud of you, you know? Both of you.”

Louis smiled wordlessly and slung an arm around Liam’s shoulders as they made their way back out of the bedroom, leaving Harry snoring serenely in their bed.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

“Babe, you need to get up.”

Louis would have been slightly more worried about the fact that Harry had been in bed for the past ten hours if he hadn’t already known that adjusting to her new dose of estrogen—after not being on it at all for a good two months—was going to wreak havoc on her body. So far, she’d been sleeping almost twice as much as Louis, eating a hell of a lot less, and seemed to be perpetually freezing even though the weather was already starting to warm up. Par for the course, really. But knowing what to expect didn’t do much in the way of alleviating Louis’s responsibilities as Harry’s caretaker.

Louis sighed and slumped down on the bed next to her, his feet still planted firmly on the carpet as he carded his fingers through the mass of curls obscuring her face.

“At least tell me what you want to eat,” he tried instead. “I can bring you something.”

That finally coaxed a response out of Harry’s previously catatonic form. “You’ll ruin it,” she groaned before rolling over onto her back and throwing her arm over her eyes with a soft whine.

“Ouch,” Louis replied in good humor. He stood back up again and moved over to the bathroom door to grab the robe he knew Harry would want to slip into just as soon as she managed to drag herself out of bed.

“You know what I mean,” Harry replied with a yawn.

Louis did know. Harry was very particular about her food, and Louis was self-admittedly not the best cook in the first place. He could put enough dishes together to get by, but they weren’t the borderline culinary masterpieces that both Harry and Anne seemed to be able to pull out of a hat. That was part of the reason, if Louis was being perfectly honest, that he’d been delaying having breakfast until he could manage to get Harry out of bed. He was craving French toast.

It only took a bit of mild suggestion once Harry was awake and in the kitchen to get the morning meal Louis had been angling for, and he was relieved to see her energy levels rise once there was some food in her stomach.

Louis sank down onto the couch after finishing the dishes, already trying to come up with a way to make the most of their last weekend together before he had to go back to work. He decided to leave it in Harry’s hands. She was the one who’d be suffering the most come Monday, after all.

“What do you want to do today?” Louis asked, stretching his arms out over the back of the couch as he looked over at Harry, who was huddled up into a tiny ball on the other cushion with a contemplative look on her face.

Harry’s expression quickly shifted to something more hopeful as she turned her head toward Louis. “Minecraft?” she said in a small voice.

Louis had to fight to keep a grimace from appearing on his face. He’d gone through his video games phase in high school before realizing that his attention span wasn’t suited to the task, especially when it came to anything mindless or repetitive. Harry, who hadn’t touched a single game throughout the entirety of her childhood, had gravitated immediately to the most mindless and repetitive games there were once she’d figured out in college that she didn’t need a four-hundred-dollar console to actually play them.

Usually, she was content to play on her own when the mood struck, which had been more than convenient for Louis throughout the past month as it meant that she could easily keep herself entertained while he worked. But sometimes, she got the itch to play _with_ Louis.

It wasn’t like he could tell her no, either. Louis sighed and nodded, causing Harry’s face to light up with obvious excitement. “After lunch,” he clarified. “I’m supposed to go over and help your mom move that stuff into the garage, remember?”

Harry put on a pout as she nodded.

“Besides,” Louis continued in a more careful tone, “we should probably talk about Monday first.”

There was a flash of annoyance that crossed Harry’s face before she managed to school it into a perfect mask of blissful innocence. “What about Monday?” she asked sweetly.

Louis wasn’t about to fall for it. “I’m worried about you,” he said bluntly. “I don’t like the idea of you being alone every day while I’m at work.”

The false smile Harry had been wearing fell away to reveal a pointedly downturned curve of her lips. “I’ll be fine,” she said in a clipped voice. “I’m not a baby, Louis. I can get up and do things myself.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about,” Louis insisted, but Harry had already turned away, evidently finished with the conversation before Louis could even make his point.

“Can we not do this right now?” she asked with the blankets tucked up under her chin again. “I just want to enjoy the weekend.”

Louis sighed quietly and stood up from the couch. “Okay,” he replied after deciding to give in—for now, at least. He still thought Harry was overestimating her ability to get by on her own and he planned to talk about it with Anne at the earliest opportunity. And speaking of which— “I’m gonna go over and help your mom for a bit,” Louis told Harry as he walked past the back of the couch, ducking down to press his lips against the top of Harry’s head as he went by. “It shouldn’t take too long, but do you want me to bring something over from the house to have for lunch or do you want to make something here?”

“Can’t we order in?” Harry replied with a pleading expression.

After discovering she could have most of the hippie restaurants nearby delivered to the house, Harry had begun favoring the convenience of ordering food over making it herself. Immediately after her discharge, that had been a good way to keep Harry happy in between the meals that Anne and some of their friends had brought over, but their budget just seemed to be getting tighter and tighter every month, and Louis didn’t feel great about adding another take-out charge to their credit card bill.

“We’re supposed to be saving money,” he gently reminded her. “I can make us cold cuts if you don’t want to cook anything else.”

Harry sighed and slumped back against the couch cushion. “Fine,” she replied miserably. “Just grab some cider from the house, then.” Harry hadn’t been a huge drinker before her surgery, but she liked the occasional hard beverage with food, and Louis was guessing it was her small way of celebrating.

“Sure,” he told her before walking out into the backyard to make his trek over to the main house.

Louis found Anne already in the garage, though the boxes she’d asked him to move were still strewn about all around her, their contents in various stages of disorganization. She glanced up as he walked in and shut the door to the laundry room behind himself, her tired expression morphing into something more puzzled.

“You didn’t need to come over this early,” Anne said with a frown creasing the bridge of her nose.

“I can help you with that too, if you want,” Louis offered. He sat down before Anne could protest and quickly took stock of her organizational methods before diving in.

The two of them worked in silence for a while, and then Anne finally looked up and stared straight at Louis before opening her mouth again to speak. “Shouldn’t you be spending time with Harry?” she asked straight-forwardly.

Louis had to suppress the urge to wince. “I wanted to talk to you about that, actually,” he confessed. “I’m not really sure what to do about the whole…work thing. I don’t think there’s anyone I can ask to come over and keep her company, but I don’t want her to feel like she’s trapped while I’m gone, you know?”

Anne nodded sagely. “Maybe it’s less about keeping her company and more about keeping her occupied,” she replied. “I think part of the problem is that all she thinks about is how much she wants things to go back to normal. She needs a good distraction to keep her from dwelling on all the stuff she can’t change.”

Louis mulled that over in his mind as he helped Anne finish sorting everything before actually achieving the task he’d set out to assist her with. Once they finished, Louis was no closer to an answer, and he had no choice now but to head back to the casita with two hard ciders in hand to make lunch for himself and Harry before joining her in a game of Minecraft.

She was already hard at work on a farm when Louis slipped in through the front door, her headphones jammed onto her ears and a look of pure concentration on her face. Louis set down the chilled bottle of cider next to her, but he was careful not to disturb her as he walked past into the kitchen, where he set about making their sandwiches before returning to the living room with his own computer.

“Do we have a house yet?” Louis asked as he sat down. He pulled the headphone jack on Harry’s computer, filling the room with the sound of loud meowing. “Christ, what the hell is that about?”

“Of course we have a house,” Harry replied indignantly. It was usually the second order of business for her when she started a new world even though Louis couldn’t understand what she liked so much about putting a bunch of blocks together when there was stuff to actually fight. “I’m making a bedroom for the cats.”

Louis scrunched his eyebrows together as he leaned over to get a better look at Harry’s screen. She’d somehow managed to acquire an entire herd of cats, numbering more than a dozen from the looks of it, and was diligently making beds out of different colored wool for each of them.

Suddenly, a light went off in Louis’s brain. “Oh,” he blurted out without meaning to.

Harry looked at him suspiciously. “What?”

“Nothing,” Louis replied. He turned back to the plates of food in his lap and handed Harry’s over. They ate quickly while Louis booted the game up, and then spent the next several hours making an attempt at building a sprawling seaside village with individual houses for each of Harry’s cats. And all the while, Louis’s mind was in overdrive, because he was pretty sure he’d finally found the solution to the problem of Harry’s impending solitude.

Louis waited until Harry was showering before dinner that night to run over to the main house so he could tell Anne his plan.

“You’re sure you can afford it?” she asked. It was a reasonable question, but Louis had already glanced at his budget and figured out a few ways to carve out the money they’d need to cover it.

Louis nodded. “I just don’t want to do it if you think she won’t be able to handle it.”

Anne sucked in a pensive breath and exhaled it slowly. “I’d be willing to help out if she has trouble adjusting to it,” she said. “But ultimately, it’s up to you. I certainly don’t think it’s a bad idea.”

“Okay,” Louis replied, nodding again as he backed up toward the door to run back to the casita before Harry had the chance to realize he was gone. “I’ll let you know on Monday, then.”

Louis made the executive decision after dinner to surprise Harry instead of telling her outright about his new plan. He made all the necessary preparations that very Sunday and was careful to keep all of it on his desktop in the office, not wanting Harry to pass by and accidentally catch a glimpse of his screen while he was out in the living room with her on his laptop.

It was going to eat into their existing budget a little bit, but Louis was confident they could afford it without dipping into the house savings as long as they stuck to homecooked meals for the next six months. That would be harder for Louis than Harry, probably, but it would be worth it.

Louis left early for work on Monday, with a polite note written to Harry stuck to the screen of her phone, asking her to make him something to eat so that it would be ready when he came home for lunch. She was still fast asleep, but Louis kissed her forehead anyway on his way out the door, and then headed to the Target close to his office to pick up supplies for later. He kept them safely locked in the trunk when he came home for lunch just in case, but it turned out to be an unnecessary precaution, as Harry only met him at the side gate when he pulled onto Anne’s property.

“How was work?” Harry asked amicably as she set out an array of taco ingredients on the table for them to partake in together.

“Good,” Louis said. He was careful not to emote too much, not wanting to give away his excitement. “It’s nice to be back, see everyone again.”

Harry nodded and offered up nothing further. They ate quickly, in silence, and then Louis engaged Harry in small talk about how she’d chosen to entertain herself throughout the morning—it turned out to be sleeping, mostly.

And then Louis was on his way back to work again, this time with a much longer block of busy hours stretching out in front of him. He got out of the office a bit late, with only an hour or so left to make it to the shelter before they closed their doors for the night. The woman at the front desk gave him an odd look when he told her his name and she looked up his adoption reservation, but she didn’t say a word as she helped him pack both kittens into their brand new carriers before giving him a stack of paperwork—half of it to sign, the other half to keep.

Once the carriers were tucked into the front seat, Louis took a minute to examine the two kittens before starting the car to head home.

The first was a tiny tortoiseshell, more black than orange with a line going straight down the middle of its face to its nose, and a small patch of cream fur on its chest. The kitten was carefully sniffing the carrier grate and didn’t seem to be bothered by Louis’s presence in the slightest. In fact, when Louis stuck his fingers close to the kitten’s nose, he received a careful sniff as well as a light nip before the cat spun around again and curled up on the blankets to go to sleep.

The second kitten, although a lot larger than its counterpart, was much more reserved, sticking to the back of the crate and vanishing almost completely within the dark space, only its one yellow eye visible as Louis peered in at it. “You’ll warm up to Harry,” Louis told the frightened cat with confidence. “She’ll have you eating out of the palm of her hand in no time.”

Now that Louis had everything ready to go, he texted Harry to let her know he was on his way back home with an apology for the lateness, which he attributed to needing to catch up on things he’d missed while working at home. It wasn’t, strictly-speaking, a lie.

This time, when Louis pulled up to the house, Harry wasn’t waiting for him at the gate. She wasn’t in the front room either when he carefully walked into the guest house with a pet carrier in each hand. He took advantage of her momentary absence, figuring she was probably in the bathroom or something, to tuck the carriers on the kitchen counter with a throw blanket draped over them so he could properly surprise her. He took a minute to make sure both kittens were okay with the change and then sprinted out of the kitchen to go get Harry.

The bedroom was pitch black when Louis walked in. He was confused for a moment, and then flicked on the light to find a lump huddled under the blankets on Harry’s side of their bed. Cautiously, Louis moved toward her.

“Harry?” he said in a quiet voice. “I have something to show you.”

She didn’t answer.

Louis tiptoed closer, finally crouching down at the side of the bed to look her in the eye.

Harry had been crying, that much was obvious. What wasn’t obvious was why.

“Did something happen?” Louis wondered. “Should I call the doctor?”

Harry shook her head. “I don’t think I can do this,” she said in a tiny voice. “It’s only been one day.”

Ah. That explained it. Louis knew she’d have a hard time cooped up inside all day with no one to talk to, but he didn’t think it would be this bad this quickly. “Let’s get you up,” he said without acknowledging her statement. “Come on, I have a surprise for you.”

That made Harry perk up a bit, and from there it was fairly easy to get her from the bedroom to the kitchen, where the pet crates were still sitting on the counter, covered up with the blanket like Louis was planning on doing a magic trick.

“What is that?” Harry asked dubiously as she spotted the unfamiliar objects.

Louis didn’t answer, instead letting go of her to pull the throw off of the crates in an elaborate reveal. “Ta-da!” he added exuberantly.

Harry stared into the carriers in shock for a moment and then promptly burst into tears. Louis froze, and for a moment he wasn’t sure if they were upset tears or happy tears, but then he realized they were probably just overwhelmed tears, and he rushed forward to put his arms around her, slowly rocking her back and forth until she calmed down.

“You okay?” he checked once her tears had subsided a bit.

Harry nodded. “I thought you said we couldn’t get a cat until we moved,” she replied.

“I did,” Louis replied. “But I thought this would help, you know, so you’re not so lonely while I’m at work all the time.”

Harry nodded again as a fresh wave of tears flowed from her eyes. “What are their names?” she asked as she moved forward to look at the kittens.

“Up to you.”

“Boy or girl?” Harry inquired as she looked in at the one-eyed brown cat huddled into the back of the carrier.

“They’re both boys,” Louis told her.

Harry glanced back at him in surprise after taking a closer look at the tortoiseshell kitten eagerly trying to stick his paw through the grate. “I thought calicos and torties were all girls,” Harry replied.

“As it was explained to me,” Louis informed her, “apparently, it can happen if a male cat has two X chromosomes as well as a Y. And the other guy was rescued from a breeder who was neglecting the cats, which is why he only has one eye.” He’d picked both cats because of their unusual status, knowing that Harry would love them both every bit as much as a ‘normal’ cat.

Harry was crying again, but they were very obviously happy tears now. “This one is Tibert,” she announced as she opened the tortoiseshell’s cage, at which point the kitten promptly jumped onto the counter and began to examine his new surroundings. “And this one is Harlow,” Harry said, opening the brown cat’s carrier as well. He didn’t move for the time being, but Louis was sure that he’d warm up to them both in time.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis was worried initially that his plan for curing Harry’s loneliness—or at the very least, assuaging it in some small way—wouldn’t work out quite the way he’d hoped. As a result, he found himself pleasantly surprised when he arrived home on Tuesday to find Harry sitting in the middle of the floor in the living room, all smiles as she dangled a piece of yarn over the heads of both Tibert and Harlow.

Harlow jumped a little upon noticing Louis’s entrance into the casita, but instead of darting into the nearest enclosed space like Louis expected him to after how shy he’d been last night, he simply curled up against Harry’s lower back, his one yellow eye still peering at Louis from behind her hip.

“Well, that didn’t take long,” Louis observed as he carefully placed his laptop bag down on the table so as not to alarm either of the cats with the noise.

Harry looked up at him with a cheery expression. Tibert took advantage of her momentary distraction to snatch the yarn straight out of her hand, quickly rolling over onto his back as he brought up the end of the yarn to gnaw on it victoriously.

Harry glanced down again and snatched the yarn out of his mouth before he could make much progress on it, however. “You weren’t around for the two hours I spent trying to get Harlow to come out from under the bed this morning,” she remarked, swinging the yarn back and forth again as Tibert scrambled up onto his hind legs to retrieve it.

They’d decided the night before to let the cats sleep in their bedroom, both because of the lack of space in the casita as well as the fact that Harry thought it would be better for their socialization—Harlow’s in particular. Clearly, she’d been right, as the one-eyed kitten seemed to have no qualms about cuddling with Harry after less than a day spent in her presence, though he was clearly still wary of Louis.

“No real problems with them, though?” Louis asked hopefully. He loosened his tie and discarded it right there on the kitchen table before reaching down to unbutton his shirt as well.

Harry paid him no mind as he undressed, still too preoccupied with the kittens to afford Louis more than the bare minimum of her attention. “Tibert only licks the wet food,” she replied. “He won’t actually chew the chunks of meat. He ate all of the dry food, though, so I guess we’ll just have to buy both.”

Louis winced a little at that before realizing it would probably work out in their favor economically in the long run if they were only buying wet food for one of the cats. “I’ll write it on the fridge,” Louis said. He quickly shrugged out of his shirt before disappearing into the kitchen to do just that. It wasn’t until he turned around to undo his belt that he noticed the small catastrophe sitting in the sink. “The dishes aren’t done,” Louis noted as non-judgmentally as he could possibly manage.

“Oh, sorry,” Harry said absently as she continued wiggling the piece of yarn between the cats. “I must’ve forgotten to do them earlier.”

“It’s fine,” Louis replied. “I can take care of them before we walk over.” They were eating with Anne most nights that week, until Louis was sure that Harry had adjusted to their new routine. He was exhausted from having to work even longer hours than he was accustomed to after spending an entire month at home, but he figured doing the dishes every once in a while to take some of the load off of Harry wouldn’t be that big of a deal. She was usually on top of all her chores, especially now that she was feeling a bit better physically, so Louis just shucked his pants, walked over to the sink in just his boxers, and made quick work of the dishes without complaint.

Unfortunately, Louis hadn’t banked on Harry’s neglect being a symptom of a much larger problem.

One unforeseen consequence of Louis going back to work and adding two cats into the mix was that Harry now found herself with a seemingly insurmountable chores to do during the day. She prioritized the most important things, like feeding the cats and cleaning their litter, and doing the laundry over at the main house during the day so that Louis would have clean clothes every day for work, but certain things were beginning to slip through the cracks as the week progressed.

Louis couldn’t blame Harry when she brought up the fact that she was too overwhelmed by everything else to even think about taking over the chores that Louis used to do when they were both working normal hours, like cleaning the kitchen and bathroom. Louis cut her some slack at first, figuring that they could just clean together on the weekends to make up for it, but he soon realized he couldn’t ignore the issue any longer once the dishes had become enough of an obstruction that they couldn’t use the sink for anything else.

So Louis started problem solving.

There were multiple issues at play, he quickly realized. Harry simply didn’t have the energy to clean up after both of their everyday messes in addition to caring for the cats, and a big reason for that was the fact that she was direly out of shape. They had both been fairly athletic prior to Harry’s surgery, but after a month of near-constant bedrest, she had lost all her muscle tone and found herself burning out quickly while doing anything even remotely physical.

Step one of Louis’s solution was to ask Anne to collect their dishes in the evenings and run them through the dishwasher in the main house along with their own. Dishes were by far the worst of the chores they had to do on a day-by-day basis, so Louis figured that would be the biggest relief to have taken off of Harry’s plate.

Step two was to do a deep clean on the weekends when Louis had the time for it, just to make it easier on Harry while she took care of the smaller maintenance tasks. He’d always been a pretty messy person before meeting Harry, and honestly, she’d been the same way. It hadn’t been until they’d moved in together that they’d both made a conscious effort to change their habits, and apparently Harry’s surgery had given them both the tiniest push they’d needed to grow lax on keeping things tidy.

Step three was making sure that Harry got back into the shape she’d been in before her surgery. That was easier said than done. Harry’s sports of choice were all impractical for various reasons, not least of which was the fact that she was still recovering from a major surgery, and although they were more than a month into her recovery, they’d been warned that she should take it easy for at least a good eight weeks.

Louis was a lot more adventurous in terms of athletics, but there wasn’t much that he was into that was a good fit for Harry either. But with a little luck and some Googling, he was pretty sure he had the perfect solution.

There were several hiking trails not far from their house; on Saturday morning, Louis woke Harry up while it was still dark, pushed her into sweats and a hoodie, and then fed and watered the cats before they left the house.

Harry was still half-asleep when they got to the trailhead, but the cold air blowing into her face as soon as she opened the car door seemed to wake her right up. “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” she grumbled as she climbed out of the car and followed Louis away from the makeshift lot where they’d parked and over to the trail itself.

“It’ll be nice,” Louis argued. “Look, the sun’s just barely coming up. We should have a good view when we reach the top of the hill.”

Harry looked like she would much rather murder him on the spot than hike up a hill to watch the sunrise, but she followed him without uttering another word of complaint.

Louis took her hand in his as they walked. He was careful to go slow, barely picking up his feet so that Harry wouldn’t strain herself too much. She needed to start exercising again with some degree of consistency, and since spin classes and yoga were out of the question for the next couple months at least, going for daily walks with her was the best Louis could offer her. It was better than throwing her onto Anne’s treadmill, in his opinion, but he definitely hadn’t anticipated just how cold it was going to be when they headed out that morning.

They were almost to the top of the hill when Harry stopped short, her eyes going wide as she squeezed Louis’s hand. “What was that?” she whispered.

“What was what?” Louis asked in a normal voice. He hadn’t heard anything aside from the wind gently rustling the leaves high above their heads, still invisible under the cover of early morning darkness.

Suddenly, Harry shrieked and leapt toward Louis, almost knocking him over completely as she tried to scramble away from the right side of the trail. It wasn’t until Louis regained his balance and pulled her in close that he realized what she had seen: a medium-sized rattlesnake, coiled up in the bushes, its tail already raised in warning.

Louis frowned as he looked over at the snake. “It’s not going to hurt you,” he reassured Harry. “It’s too far away, and he probably doesn’t have the energy to go after anything that isn’t food, anyway.”

Harry’s grip on Louis’s hand was painfully tight. “How do you know that?” she asked uncertainly.

“Because Liam was one of those weird kids in elementary school who thought snakes and frogs and shit were cool. He used to talk about snakes constantly. It’s too cold out still for them, so don’t worry about it, okay? Let’s just keep going.”

“Can’t we turn around?” Harry pleaded. “I’m tired.”

“But we’re almost there,” Louis argued. The summit was already within sight.

Harry took one glance at the crest of the hill and turned back to Louis with a deadpan expression. “If we turn around right now, I’ll give you a blowjob when we get back to the car.”

Louis turned around.

A blowjob ended up not being in the cards after all, however. Harry kept wincing every time she tried to find a position while sitting in the passenger seat of the car (safe from the cold) that would let her get at Louis with her mouth, and after a minute or so of watching her fail at that, Louis finally called the whole thing off.

Harry started pouting, predictably. “But I promised,” she said as she sullenly climbed into the passenger seat.

“It’s fine,” Louis assured her as he adjusted himself in his shorts to no avail. He was going to have to drive home with a boner, evidently.

Harry leaned over before he could start the car and quickly snaked a hand into his gym shorts. “This is okay, right?” she asked, her face wide-eyed and innocent despite the fact that she had a hand wrapped around the base of his cock.

Louis’s head smacked against the headrest and he groaned as her grip tightened. They hadn’t had sex in a good six weeks, since before Louis had flown to Kansas City, and Louis hadn’t even asked her for this much since she’d gotten out of the hospital, instead opting to get himself off with his hand while she recovered.

“Definitely more than okay,” he managed as she pulled his dick out and started jacking him off, her technique clearly demonstrating that she’d either forgotten nothing during their dry spell or that getting Louis off was merely muscle memory for her now.

It was too good after not having another person’s touch for so long, and Louis was coming into her hand in less than five minutes. He gaped at Harry as she lifted her messy fingers to her mouth and cleaned them off with her tongue with a discerning expression. “We should buy more fruit,” she decided nonchalantly.

Louis was at a loss in the aftermath of his orgasm as he stared blankly down at the flat mound of Harry’s crotch under her yoga pants. Usually, he’d offer to reciprocate, and even though Harry obviously hadn’t been attached to her penis in the slightest, she’d never turned down a handjob or a blowie before her surgery. Now, Louis didn’t know what to do.

“Can we go out for breakfast?” Harry asked, saving Louis the trouble of figuring out how to proceed.

There wasn’t really money in the budget for that, but Louis supposed that a trip to IHOP once in a blue moon wasn’t going to set them back too much. And well, after the orgasm he’d just had, Louis was feeling particularly inclined to do literally anything Harry asked.

The two of them ended up watching the sunrise from an IHOP parking lot, their hands intertwined over the center console while the heater on Harry’s side of the car churned out hot air at full blast.

“I guess we could just walk around the neighborhood a bit to start,” Louis mused after several seconds of silence. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about the prospect, but it would be easier to keep up with on workdays. It would save them a pretty penny in gas, too, especially if Harry was going to turn on the heating every time she got in the car when it was only barely in the forties outside.

“To start,” Harry replied flatly.

Louis let out a long sigh. “What’s wrong with hiking?” he asked her.

“Nothing,” Harry said. “I love hiking. I don’t love waking up at four in the morning to go hiking in the dark when it’s still freezing outside.”

Louis sighed again. “Fine,” he told her. “We can go for walks after dinner, then.”

Clearly satisfied with the outcome of their discussion, Harry turned to open the car door and climbed out before Louis had a chance to turn the engine off. She was already inside waiting for a table when Louis finally caught up to her, but even though the temperature of the restaurant was reasonably warm in Louis’s opinion, Harry was still shivering by the time they sat down.

“Your meds?” Louis asked cryptically as they looked over the menu. He didn’t want to out her to any would-be eavesdroppers by discussing the side effects of her hormones in a public place.

“Yeah, I guess maybe I should probably see if the dose needs to be changed,” Harry replied with a shrug. “I’m still tired all the time, too.”

“When’s your next appointment?” Louis asked.

“Friday.”

“Who’s driving you?”

“Gemma.”

The conversation was perfectly polite, but Louis couldn’t help but feel a subtle undercurrent of unease as they talked things over while waiting for their server to come and take their order.

It wasn’t until after they returned home—at which point Harry collapsed into bed to get another few hours of sleep in before beginning her day anew—that Louis realized what was troubling him.

It was sex. Or rather, the prospect of having sex. With Harry. Something that was steadily growing closer the more progress she made in her recovery.

Louis collapsed onto the couch with a sigh after tucking Harry into bed and closing the door so he wouldn’t disturb her while she slept. His dick was an unpleasant weight against his leg, already semi erect without any stimulation at all. Apparently, all his sex drive needed to kickstart it back into action was a quick and messy handjob in the car after six weeks of abstinence.

The problem now was that Louis didn’t know what to do about it. All his masturbation sessions after Harry’s surgery had been undertaken in the shower, more often than not while he was still half asleep and not conscious enough to consider fantasizing about anything at all.

Now Louis was feeling guilty about the fact that he couldn’t seem to conjure up an arousing image of his own girlfriend in his head so that he could jerk off, which was not something he’d envisioned at the start of Harry’s whole journey of transitioning.

It wasn’t like Louis hadn’t seen her naked. He saw her naked five times a day, on average. But getting a quick, clinical glimpse of Harry’s grown out dusting of pubic hair was a lot different than actually familiarizing himself with what was between her legs. Before her surgery, Louis could have probably drawn a perfect recreation of her dick and asshole from memory. He definitely could have picked her junk out of a faceless lineup. And he’d jacked off to those mental images more times than he could count.

Doing that now, though…it seemed like a betrayal, somehow. Like he would be admitting to himself that he wasn’t happy with the way Harry was now. And Louis was happy. He just didn’t know how to convince himself of that yet.

Louis was still contemplating the sad state of affairs while staring down at his half-hard dick in his sweatpants when the bedroom door opened to reveal Harry standing there in her pajama shirt, rubbing her eyes sleepily.

Louis sat up hastily to cover lingering evidence of his would-be activities. “What’s up?” he asked, wondering why she wasn’t asleep. It usually took her all of five minutes to pass out once she hit the pillow.

“Can you make me some tea?” she asked through a yawn. “Can’t fall back asleep for some reason.”

“Sure,” Louis told her as he climbed off the couch, secretly grateful for the excuse to distract himself from his penis and any penis-related angst for the moment. “Why can’t you sleep?” he asked as he walked into the kitchen a few steps ahead of her.

Harry followed him in and shrugged. She was so cute in just her slippers and an oversized t-shirt that when Louis turned around to face her again after turning the kettle on, his heart almost burst. “Too keyed up after the snake thing, I guess.”

“I thought you weren’t scared of snakes anymore,” Louis replied gently. Anne had regaled him with stories when they first started dating about how Harry as a small child had been terrified of even the plastic toy snakes that some of her friends liked to play with. To say nothing of the six-foot-long rubber ones from the Jungle Cruise shop that Gemma had apparently wrapped around Harry’s shoulders during an ill-fated trip to Disneyland. Louis placed his hands on Harry’s shoulders and nudged her to the side so he could get two mugs out of the cabinet behind her. “You liked looking at the ones at the zoo.”

“The ones at the zoo can’t bite you,” Harry pointed out.

Louis had to admit she had a point there.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis was usually the extrovert between the two of them, but when it came to going out with Niall’s friends, he was almost always the first to decline. He would’ve felt bad doing it in this case though, because it was an opportunity for Harry to get out of the house and socialize with people who weren’t Louis or her immediate family, and as an added cherry on top, Niall had graciously offered to pay for their drinks.

Harry’s drinks, that is, because Louis was stuck being the responsible one, and they certainly weren’t about to spend extra cash on taking a Lyft to meet Niall and Shawn at the bar.

Niall was a riot as always, but Louis was rapidly regretting his decision to stay sober the longer he had to watch Shawn hanging all over Harry as the four of them waited for the karaoke stage to open up.

It wasn’t like Shawn was even trying to hit on Harry, either. Louis was pretty sure Shawn was gay anyway, and he was also aware that Harry didn’t like it when he was overly possessive or jealous over harmless flirtations. Shawn wasn’t even doing that. But what he was doing was loudly interrogating Harry about every aspect of her transition, his eyes wide like he’d never even entertained the concept of a transgender person existing before.

Louis was doing his damnedest to keep from looking visibly annoyed. Harry didn’t appear to be suffering from the same issue. She just nodded along with all of Shawn’s uncertain questioning, an indulgent smile playing at the corners of her mouth as she waited for him to stop rambling so she could give an answer.

Despite Harry’s carefree amusement throughout the whole conversation, it wasn’t much longer before Louis decided he’d had enough.

“Excuse me,” Louis said as he slid his chair back, the loud scrape of the wooden legs across the floor cutting Shawn off midsentence. Harry turned her head as he passed, staring after him with a worried expression, but Louis was fine. He just needed a minute to cool off.

It wasn’t really Shawn’s fault that Louis was in such a bad mood. It was Louis’s fault, more than anything, and right now Shawn was just a catalyst for all the pent-up frustration that had been building up inside of Louis since last Saturday when he and Harry had gone one their ill-fated hike.

Simply put, Louis was irritable because he was horny. He’d been too afraid of what his brain would conjure up if he tried to jack off now, after Harry’s handjob had flipped some hidden switch inside him that had sent all his dormant sexual feelings flooding back. Louis hadn’t been ready for them. He still wasn’t.

“Hey, you okay, bro?”

Louis turned from where he was gripping the sink with white knuckles to find Niall standing in the doorway to the men’s bathroom. He realized a second later that he’d been expecting it to be Harry to come after him, even though he should have remembered that she couldn’t exactly get away with following him into gendered restrooms anymore.

“Fine,” Louis replied curtly. “Just felt kinda sick for a minute. I’m fine now.” He wasn’t sure if Niall believed the lie, but Niall didn’t question him any further as they made their way out of the bathroom and back over to their table.

Shawn was still chatting energetically to Harry, apparently oblivious to Louis’s momentary absence. But the karaoke stage was finally open to all-comers now, and Louis spotted his opportunity to put an end to Shawn’s incessant dialogue.

“Niall said you sing,” Louis said, steamrolling straight through Shawn’s sentence without a care for how rude the interruption was.

“Um, yeah,” Shawn replied, blinking up at Louis in confusion. “A bit, I guess.”

“You should go first,” Louis urged. “Show us what you’ve got.”

Shawn’s eyes darted automatically toward Harry, as though seeking her approval. Louis spotted her giving him the tiniest of nods, and that seemed to be enough. A relieved smile blossomed on Shawn’s face, and he pushed his chair out to go up and pick a song. Louis heaved out a loud sigh of relief as soon as he was gone.

Harry elbowed him in the ribs, _hard_ , a stern expression replacing the placating smile she’d worn while conversing with Shawn. “What’s gotten into you?” she hissed before taking another long sip of her margarita.

Niall just laughed at the two of them. “Sorry about all the questions,” he told Harry, his voice too low to be heard by Shawn, who was a good ways away from their table now as he climbed up onto the raised stage with a microphone. “He’s curious, but he means well.”

“It’s fine,” Harry insisted. “He seems harmless.” She emphasized the last bit with a glare thrown in Louis’s direction, but Louis chose to ignore it. Sure, Shawn was harmless—as long as annoying the fuck out of Louis didn’t constitute any kind of tangible harm.

Once Shawn finished—after absolutely killing the song he’d chosen, much to Louis’s surprise—Harry immediately hopped up to go next, thankfully depriving Louis of having to endure listening to Harry and Shawn natter on for another second. Once she came back to the table, after enduring Louis’s overenthusiastic applause, she sat down and hid her blush behind another margarita while watching Niall sing.

There were two strangers that followed Niall’s performance, and then a long pause between volunteers that had everyone at the table egging Louis into getting on-stage. Louis looked forlornly at the cornucopia of alcoholic beverages laid out before him on the table, wishing he could have indulged in a bit of liquid courage before being bullied into performing a song.

“What song?” Louis asked with an exasperated sigh, after already pushing his chair out in preparation for going up.

Harry wrinkled her nose and gave it a few seconds of consideration. “Somebody Told Me?” she replied hopefully.

Louis did his best not to make a face in response. He liked The Killers just as much as anyone else, but he knew the song was going to be murder on his vocal cords. He hadn’t properly sung in years. He managed though, somehow, and Harry beamed up at him from their table the whole way through, her approval more important than the unpleasant tickle in the back of Louis’s throat or the fact that a bar full of people were watching him stand there with a microphone in his hand. Of the two of them, Harry had always been the more confident one, but just having here there seemed to be enough.

Harry had somehow managed to wrangle her third drink by the time Louis sat down again, and this time the two of them just watched with their hands linked on top of the table as Niall and Shawn knocked out every duet available to them. Louis contemplated asking Harry if she wanted to do a duet too, but one look was enough to confirm that she was well on her way to wasted already, so he decided to leave it for another time.

It was clear when they arrived home a couple hours later that Harry was hopelessly drunk. Louis had to walk her into the casita and through the bedroom door before carefully depositing her down onto the bed, though Harry seemed determined to make the whole process as difficult as humanly possible.

The cats had peered at them curiously from the couch as they came stumbling in, but they hadn’t followed their humans into the bedroom, which Louis was grateful for. He had his hands full with Harry right now; he didn’t need to add two needy kittens to the mix.

“Are you okay to dilate?” Louis asked as he knelt down to help take off Harry’s shoes.

The question seemed to sober Harry up a little. She sat up, peering down at him through narrowed eyes with a frown. “I can do it,” she replied sleepily. “Can you grab my stuff?”

Louis nodded and moved over to the bathroom to grab everything she needed from the counter before laying it next to her on the bed. “I’ll be right back,” he told her as he straightened up again. She needed a glass of water and a snack if she didn’t want to have a massive hangover the next morning.

Louis was gone all of two minutes, max, but when he reentered their bedroom, he found Harry completely naked with her legs akimbo, using a stack of pillows to prop herself up as she peered with intense focus at the mirror sitting between her legs. It wouldn’t have been such a surprising sight if Louis hadn’t immediately clocked the fact that both dilators were still in their sleeve, the lube untouched on the nightstand next to her.

“What are you doing?” Louis asked. He didn’t bother to hide the bewilderment in his voice. Harry was probably too drunk to register it, anyway.

“Looking at it,” Harry replied in a mellow tone. “I haven’t really looked at it once since everything healed, you know?”

Louis didn’t know, actually. He’d assumed she was much more familiar with her new anatomy than he was, but apparently that wasn’t the case. He just watched her for a moment, with water in one hand and a yogurt in the other, as she pinched and pulled at the new folds of skin between her thighs with a determined expression.

“Have you tried masturbating yet?” Louis found himself asking without even really thinking about it first.

Harry looked up at him curiously, her brows creasing together for a second before she looked back down at herself in the mirror again. “Didn’t really want to at first,” she mumbled.

“But now?”

Harry shrugged and stilled her hands at last. She tossed one of the pillows away and sighed. “Now I want to go to bed.”

“You still have to dilate,” Louis reminded her. “And shower.”

Harry just screwed her eyes shut and let out a distressed little whine. “Can’t you do it?” she pleaded once she opened them again to stare up at Louis in a way he knew he would never be able to say no to.

Louis exhaled slowly through his nose and moved over to make a space for himself on the bed by her feet. Harry was almost passed out when he finished getting the first dilator lubed up and ready with his phone timer already prepped. Louis had helped her dilate a few times now, but there was always something disconcerting about touching her labia, gently spreading her open so he could slide the dilator in as far as it would go.

Harry barely reacted thanks to the alcohol, which Louis decided to count as a blessing. He leaned over and activated the timer before scooting over into a more comfortable position on the bed next to Harry with his phone in his hands. He didn’t want to leave her for a second while she was like this for fear that she might roll off the mattress or accidentally injure herself with the dilator in some way.

Harry didn’t so much as stir until the timer went off next to her ear, but she barely reacted to the noise except to groan in displeasure. Louis ignored her and moved down between her legs again to help pull out the smaller of the two dilators before lubing up the larger one. It wasn’t until he started to push the more sizeable bit of plastic into her vagina that Harry’s eyes shot open again, her mouth twisting into a grimace.

“Go slow,” she whispered.

Louis had been going slow, but he acquiesced immediately, maintaining only the bare minimum amount of pressure needed to push the dilator inside her as she looked on in clear discomfort. Louis watched as her new anatomy strained to accommodate the dilator, unable to keep himself from comparing it to the size of his own cock when he was hard. He didn’t exactly have the exact measurements on hand, but he was willing to bet he was at least a little bit wider, and about as long, and for once, his size wasn’t a good thing. How were they supposed to ever have sex if it hurt her this much just to dilate?

Harry was still breathing heavily when the dilator finally bottomed out inside her. Louis immediately let off the pressure he’d been applying to get it in and quickly reset the timer, not wanting her to have to sit there in pain for a second longer than necessary.

“Can you drink without spilling?” he asked, forcing himself to stop obsessing over sex for a minute in hopes that he could distract Harry from her discomfort as well.

Harry nodded, though she didn’t look happy about it. “Mhmm.”

Louis helped her lift her head up a little higher just to make sure before pressing the rim of the glass against her lips to drink. She was perfectly capable of using her own hands to hold the cup, of course, but she seemed to have forgotten that fact for the time being. “Yogurt, too,” he added once she was finished with the water. Spooning that into her mouth while she laid there like a limp noodle took considerably more time than helping her drink had, and once she’d finished the entire yogurt cup, the timer had almost ticked down to zero.

Louis was already reaching between her thighs to help ease the second dilator out by the time the alarm went off. He did his best to ignore the muffle cries of pain that slipped out of Harry’s lips as he did so and took solace in the fact that at least now there wasn’t any blood involved.

As much as Louis would have liked to let Harry just lie there and go to sleep after that ordeal, he knew she needed to shower first. It was slow going getting her in, though, and just as much of a struggle to get both Harry and himself clean under the warm spray with her hanging off him the whole time. Louis kept an arm around her waist as they climbed out and left it there the whole way back to the bed, where he finally let her go so he could dry her off. He still didn’t trust her not to fall over and crack her head on the nightstand or something.

Pajamas were a lost cause, Louis decided after getting Harry reasonably dry. Instead, he pulled a couple extra blankets out of the closet and layered them on top of the duvet once Harry was tucked in between the sheets, her mouth open wide as she laid there nearly half asleep already.

Louis crawled into bed just a few minutes later, lying on top of the blankets on his own side of the bed and snuggling up so that he could bury his face in her damp curls. He fell asleep surprisingly quickly, soothed into a state of perfect relaxation by the smell of her shampoo.

Louis woke the next morning hard against the curve of Harry’s ass, and it took him several minutes of delirious rubbing to remember just why he shouldn’t be.

Sexual frustration became a theme for Louis over the next several days. It didn’t help that Harry had decided that they should pick up where they’d left off in terms of physical affection, either. Suddenly, she was all over Louis every chance she got, and Louis had a very difficult time telling her no.

By Thursday, they’d nearly made a routine of it—Harry a comforting weight on top of Louis, the smell of her perfume everywhere as they kissed slowly with her long hair forming a curtain around them, cutting them off from the rest of the world.

They were lying on the porch swing in the backyard, directly in the sun, and because Anne wouldn’t be home until later, they had Louis’s whole lunch hour to themselves. They’d started inside the guest house on their couch, but after Tibert and Harlow had jumped up on top of them to investigate what their humans were doing, Harry had suggested that they move things outside instead.

They were both fairly touchy, intimate people by nature—the couple who grossed out the rest of their friends with PDA on a regular basis because they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. Harry’s surgery had changed that. Louis had been too afraid of hurting her to instigate even the most platonic touches, let alone take anything further. When they’d kissed each other during the first month of Harry’s recovery, it had always been initiated by Harry herself, and they usually stopped after a few minutes anyway.

They hadn’t done anything even remotely sexual since Harry had given Louis a handjob in the car a week and a half ago. Louis didn’t want to push her. He wasn’t sure how they would even proceed if they did.

The truth that Louis was forced to continually confront—whether in therapy or just through pure introspection—was that despite how much Louis loved Harry for exactly the person she was, even now, after HRT and surgery and makeup and everything else, when they’d first started dating, before Harry had come out, Louis had been totally, one-hundred-percent, Capital-G Gay.

It was part of the reason Harry had taken so long to come out; Louis had later found out that she’d known she was a girl since she was nine, when her first step-father had caught her trying on Gemma’s clothes and berated her so badly she cried and didn’t so much as put on a woman’s blouse until she was in college.

Harry had never told Anne about that day, not even after the divorce, but she’d confessed it to Louis through a wave of fresh tears after they’d been friends for nearly two years and dating for seven months. She’d thought he would break up with her then, but Louis had already fallen in love with her, practically from the moment they’d first met, and he wanted to make it work, no matter what.

And now here they were, at the end of a long, hard road, and Louis was just now realizing how unprepared he really was for the next step.

“You aren’t hard,” Harry said as she pulled away suddenly, her hands fisted in Louis’s t-shirt, her legs draped over his hips.

He would have been, Louis thought, if he hadn’t been so focused on making sure he didn’t get the least bit aroused while he and Harry had been making out. Pussy or not, his body was conditioned to react to Harry, and it had taken a good chunk of his concentration to prevent that from happening.

Louis blinked up at her in confusion. “Do you want me to be?” he asked. It didn’t seem like it would be much fun on her end to get him off and get nothing in return, but then again, Harry had always been a bit too into service kink, so maybe that was something she was angling for—

“Is something wrong?” Harry asked with a frown, cutting through the frantic rambling of Louis’s inner monologue.

Louis shook his head. “I’m fine,” he lied. “Are you feeling okay?”

“Louis,” Harry said in a biting tone. “We’ve talked about this.”

Louis sighed and closed his eyes. They had talked about it. Many times in multiple couple’s therapy sessions where Louis had probably lied to himself and Harry and their therapist and made excuses for why he was completely and totally okay with everything that was happening and how there was nothing at all for any of them to be worried about.

But Louis didn’t want to have that conversation today.

“I like kissing you,” Louis said earnestly as he opened his eyes to look up into Harry’s. “And I definitely liked it when you got me off the other day in the car. But I feel bad for letting you do it when I can’t reciprocate.” It was worse knowing she didn’t even masturbate, that she wouldn’t even get the indirect pleasure of being able to remember how she’d gotten him off when she was home alone later.

“So what are you saying?” Harry asked, her frown deepening.

Louis reached up to thumb at the corner of her lips, as though trying to smooth her troubled expression out with his fingers. “Let’s just keep kissing and cuddling until you’re feeling one-hundred-percent again, okay? Then we’ll figure things out from there.” It was another excuse, a flimsy one, and they both knew it.

Louis kissed Harry again to drive home his point, but also to distract her from any response she might have been tempted to make. He didn’t want to scare or upset her, and he wasn’t ready to have the discussion they both desperately needed to have. Not yet. Not while Harry was still fragile and healing and in need of unconditional love, more than anything.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis had just walked in the door after work when Harry came streaking out of the bedroom in just her socks and a hoodie, her face lit up with unsuppressed exhilaration.

“You okay?” Louis asked as he toed off his shoes.

“Meri’s in labor!” she replied excitedly before doing a little hop in place. “We get to go and see the baby!”

Louis raised an eyebrow. “Are they at the hospital already?” he asked.

Harry’s elation finally started to dissipate as reality set in. “Well, no,” she replied. “Ben just texted me as soon as they were sure it wasn’t Braxton Hicks. I don’t think her water’s broken yet.”

Louis sighed softly under his breath and continued to undress right there in the doorway before moving past Harry to go into the bedroom.

“You aren’t saying anything,” she said in a hurt tone as she followed him in.

Louis flopped down onto his side of the bed and threw his arm over his eyes to block out the rays of late afternoon sunlight streaming in from the window. “I’m tired,” he said by way of explanation. “I had a long day at work.” He could practically hear Harry’s pout in the silence that followed his statement.

“But the baby,” Harry protested, her voice small and sounding near to tears already.

Louis sighed again and sat up, squinting at her. “If Meri just went into labor,” he said gently, “then the baby probably won’t be born for a while. Especially since it’s her first.”

He’d had plenty of experience with pregnant women thanks to his mother—both in giving birth to Louis’s younger siblings as well as being a part-time midwife. So while Harry was the more obsessed with babies out of the two of them, Louis was the one with the practical experience. And the sensibility in cases like this, where Harry was in such a tizzy over being able to see Meri’s newborn that she wasn’t stopping to consider the logistics of the situation.

“Oh.” Harry looked crestfallen. “Right.”

Now it was Louis’s turn to frown. He really hadn’t meant to hurt her feelings; he really was just exhausted from work. “Do you want to come lay down with me?” he offered.

“Not really?” Harry replied with a sheepish laugh as she fidgeted with the hem of her oversized hoodie. “I’m still kind of…I was just really excited about seeing the baby.”

“Well, I don’t think we’re going to be able to go until tomorrow, okay?” Louis said carefully.

“Okay.”

Harry still seemed devastated, and now Louis felt bad that all he’d done since he’d gotten home was take the wind out of her sails by informing her that her excitement was premature.

Louis scooted to the other side of the bed, extending his arms to pull her into a tight embrace. The only cure for Harry’s melancholy was distraction more often than not, so Louis’s brain was already in overdrive trying to come up with a feasible solution to keep her occupied for the rest of the evening. Hopefully, by the time they were ready for bed, Ben would have an update on Meri’s situation to confirm that there would indeed be a new baby for Harry to hold tomorrow.

“Why don’t we go out on a date?” he blurted out a few seconds later.

Harry pulled back to give Louis an assessing look. “A date?”

Louis nodded. “We haven’t been on a real actual date in months,” he pointed out.

“Because we have no money,” Harry shot back, using the excuse that Louis often wielded against her when it was the other way around and Harry was the one suggesting they go out somewhere.

The difference in this case was that Louis had a plan for keeping things low budget. “We can go to the discount theater,” Louis countered. “And there’s that new food truck that Niall was talking about, with the lobster salad subs?”

Harry glanced down at herself for a moment before looking up again to meet Louis’s eyes. “I’m not dressed,” she pointed out, as though that hadn’t been abundantly obvious to Louis the second he walked through the door.

“We don’t have to go right now,” Louis reassured her. “You can shower and get ready while I look up showtimes, okay?”

“Please don’t pick something scary,” Harry pleaded just before extricating herself from Louis’s grip to head toward the bathroom.

“I won’t, I promise.” Louis was well-versed in Harry’s aversion to anything remotely startling or nerve-wracking in nature. That meant no action movies (unless she was in a good mood and had thoroughly prepared herself for it beforehand) and absolutely no horror movies. Ever. Louis had been somewhat of a horror film connoisseur before they’d met, but that had been one of the hobbies he’d found himself giving up after they started dating. He didn’t mind making that sacrifice all that much, though.

Unfortunately, the discount theater’s offerings were a bit scarce when Louis pulled up the movie times on his laptop while Harry showered. It was down to a romance film, which Louis expected to be only moderately entertained by, or some kids’ movie that he had no interest in whatsoever. The only problem was that the romance movie was due to start in just over an hour, and there was no telling how long it would take them to get to the theater.

They arrived just in time for the animated children’s movie, much to Louis’s dismay. Harry seemed happy enough as they walked into the building with their tickets in hand, though, so Louis squashed down any visible signs of his disappointment and put on a smile to please her. That was the whole point of this, after all.

The movie was every bit as atrocious as Louis had been expecting, and the theater full of loud kids and their parents didn’t do anything to enhance the experience. Harry cried at the end, when one of the anthropomorphic animals whose name Louis hadn’t managed to absorb in the last hour died in a climactic scene involving a thunderstorm and some moody music.

Louis stared straight at the screen while Harry used his jacket to wipe away her tears, bored out of his mind and just counting down the seconds until the damn thing was over.

“That wasn’t so bad, right?” Harry said cheerily on their way out of the theater, their hands clasped together between their bodies as they followed the small crowd ahead of them out into the now-darkened parking lot.

“Yeah, it was all right,” Louis lied. He forced a smile onto his face just as Harry turned around to catch his reaction, hoping it was convincing enough. He’d hated every minute of the movie, but he didn’t want to ruin her experience. Sometimes a white lie here and there was necessary to keep things running smoothly in their relationship. “You still hungry?” he asked, trying to divert the conversation away from the movie quickly before Harry got it into her head that they should hold a debate on it in the car.

“Starving,” Harry replied. “How far is it to the place?”

“Not far,” Louis replied confidently. “Like ten minutes or so.”

Ten minutes quickly turned to twenty, which then approached thirty by the time they actually arrived to find a long line already awaiting them at the truck. To make things even worse, the outside temperature had dropped a good ten degrees since they’d left the theater, and Louis could see the writing on the wall. He left Harry in the car with the heater running while he made his way through the line in the cold to get their sandwiches, cursing Niall under his breath and hoping to god that they were every bit as good as they’d sounded.

It was, even though Louis found himself struggling to eat it while driving back to the house. He was almost finished when they got back, whereas Harry had barely made a dent in hers and still looked dangerously moody when Louis opened the side gate for her to go through.

“Anything from Ben?” Louis wondered.

Harry grumbled out a quiet ‘no’ in response before sitting down at the kitchen table to finish her dinner.

Louis watched her for a minute, scrambling to come up with something that would help him salvage the night. “Do you want me to paint your nails after you’re done?” he asked, noticing that the polish she was currently wearing was already starting to chip off.

Harry looked surprised by the offer. It had been a while since Louis had thought to ask, mostly because his mind had been occupied with other things, but the activity had been one that he’d always enjoyed back when they’d first started dating.

“Um, sure,” Harry replied hesitantly. “Do you want to pick out the colors?”

Louis nodded because he knew it was the answer that she wanted him to give. “I’ll be right back.” He gave Harry’s stash of nail polishes a quick perusal before choosing a deep shimmery red and a clear topcoat with flecks of gold. Harry usually went for two or three colors at a time with little regard to whether they matched in any way at all, but Louis thought the color would look nicer on its own.

Harry was quiet all throughout the painting process, her face blank and hands perfectly still as Louis concentrated on making sure he didn’t fuck anything up. Then her phone lit up next to them on the coffee table, and Harry’s eyes widened as she instinctively jerked her hand away from Louis’s grip.

“Leave it!” Louis scolded. If she tried to use the touchscreen her nails would inevitably end up ruined. “I’ll check it for you.”

It was from Ben, which Louis was relieved to see. _On our way to the hospital. What time can you come visit tomorrow?_

“He wants to know what time we want to come to the hospital tomorrow,” Louis paraphrased.

Harry’s eyes widened even further. She looked like she wanted to snatch her phone out of Louis’s hands so she could type a reply herself. “Is the baby born? Is there a picture?”

“No, the baby isn’t born yet,” Louis replied exasperatedly. “They’re on their way to the hospital right now, apparently. You’ll probably be asleep when she has the baby.”

“How am I supposed to sleep now?” Harry demanded.

Louis just ignored her and pulled her hand back down onto the coffee table so he could finish the rest of her nails. Just as he’d anticipated, Harry was fast asleep in their bed before midnight. Louis stayed up a little longer, checking her phone every now and again to see if there were any updates on Meri’s progress, but when the clock ticked over to one, he decided it was officially time to give up.

Harry woke Louis up the next morning with an ear-splitting shriek of excitement that Louis didn’t have to inquire as to the nature of. It was easy enough to guess what had happened.

“I’ll start the car,” Louis said sleepily as he rolled out of bed.

They were on the road in less than an hour. Unfortunately, their journey from the house to the hospital itself wasn’t quite so smooth.

“You look like you’re going to start asking me ‘are we there yet’,” Louis remarked as he glanced over at Harry, who had been bouncing up and down in the passenger seat of their car for at least five minutes straight.

“It’s slightly less exciting to hear the answer when you know exactly how far away you are,” Harry replied dryly. But that didn’t stop her from continuing to nervously fidget for the rest of the drive, which was less driving than it was slowly gliding across the freeway in the middle of standstill traffic.

It took them twenty minutes longer to reach Cedars-Sinai even after they got around the source of the traffic obstruction—a minor collision blocking the two left lanes. Harry very pointedly averted her eyes as they passed.

“It’s fine,” Louis reassured her. “Everyone’s just standing around talking to the cops. There aren’t even any paramedics.” Harry didn’t respond, but she looked a little less pale once the wreckage was in their rear-view mirror.

Louis couldn’t fault her for her reaction to seeing any sort of accident on the side of the road. He still vividly remembered the scene they’d stumbled on while taking an interstate road trip that had ended with them parked in front of a crashed vehicle while waiting for the cops to let them go—all the while, the paramedics had been trying to cut a woman out of the front seat while she screamed. She hadn’t been seriously injured from what Louis had seen of the wreck, but the experience had been enough to give Harry nightmares for weeks.

After that slight hiccup, though, the rest of their trip to the hospital was completely uneventful, and they had no trouble at all finding Meri’s room in the maternity ward once they arrived.

She looked just as beautiful as ever, more maybe, because now she had a tiny bundle of blankets cradled in her arms and she was glowing. Her smile widened as she caught sight of Harry and Louis in the doorway. Ben’s expression was just as ecstatic as he let them inside.

“You want to hold her?” he asked as they followed him in.

Harry nodded animatedly, but it was Louis who held out his hands to take the baby first. “Give me a good five seconds with her,” he said. “Harry’ll never let her go.”

Harry pouted exaggeratedly as Louis was handed the baby, but she waited her turn with a surprising amount of patience, her face lighting up again as soon as Louis passed the squishy newborn over to her.

“Oh my god, she’s beautiful,” Harry said in a hushed whisper as she gazed down at the baby. “Did you decide on a name?”

Ben nodded. “Ruby,” he replied. “From the list you sent us.”

Harry looked like she was about to cry at hearing that, but she just barely managed to hold it in.

Only Ben and Meri weren’t through yet. “Also,” Meri piped up from her hospital bed, “we’d really like it if you were the godparents.”

It was Louis’s turn to be speechless. “Both of us?” he finally managed.

Ben nodded. “I know it’s more of a formality than anything,” he said, “but we thought it should be you.”

Louis blinked a few times and nodded. He moved closer to Harry, curling a hand over the back of the chair where she was sitting down with the baby, his knuckles brushing against the peach fuzz at the nape of her neck. “Thank you,” he told Ben. “We’d be honored.”

“That means we expect free babysitting services,” Meri joked.

Louis rolled his eyes. “As if Harry wouldn’t have offered anyway.” He glanced down again at Harry, who now had one of her fingers firmly clutched in Ruby’s tiny grasp. Something in his chest panged as he stared at the two of them, and he had to lift his eyes quickly to avoid having his gaze misted over with overwhelmed tears.

They spent about an hour catching up with Ben and Meri while Harry held Ruby, with Louis doing most of the talking for them both—Harry was too preoccupied with the baby to come up with much more than single-syllable answers in response to the couple’s queries about her surgery and recovery.

Ben, in particular, had been a huge help in covering the costs that their health insurance wouldn’t, freeing them up to put their savings towards a house of their own, instead of Harry’s nearly endless stream of medical bills.

Once Ruby started to fuss in Harry’s arms, Louis took that as their cue to leave. “Come on,” he said, helping Harry up so she could hand Ruby back to Meri to feed. “I guess we’ll see you guys around?”

“Harry, you’re still on vacation, right?” Meri asked. Ruby was attached at her breast now, content.

Harry nodded, staring in a way that might have been uncomfortable to anyone who didn’t know her well enough to realize that the look on her face was purely wistful. “For another month and a half,” she replied.

Meri smiled. “You should come over sometime,” she offered. “You can help me with the baby. Ben and I are alternating our leave, so I’ll be by myself mostly. It would be nice to have someone around the house.”

Harry nodded eagerly and then looked to Louis, as though seeking his approval. Louis would never stop her from doing something she wanted to do, but he appreciated her running it by him even still, so he nodded back to let her know he was fine with that idea. It would certainly help her to have a reason to be out of the house every now and then.

After finishing their goodbyes, they headed back out, managing to land themselves squarely in the middle of lunchtime traffic this time.

It took a while for Louis to notice Harry was crying next to him in her seat. He decided to wait it out before saying something, because Harry cried about everything. She’d cried last night at the stupid movie and had just finished crying before they left the hospital, after all.

But when the quiet sobs didn’t subside, and instead grew in both strength and volume, Louis knew that something was seriously wrong.

He took the next exit and pulled over immediately into a gas station, parking the car before turning to Harry to pull her as close as possible given the gap between their seats. “What’s the matter?” he murmured into the top of her head.

“I want a baby,” Harry managed, the words just barely audible through her hysterical crying.

Ah. Of course. Louis should have seen that one coming, in hindsight. “Don’t you think it’s a little early for that?” he said mildly. “We need a house first, babe. Then we can start looking into our options—”

“No!” Harry said, violently tearing herself away from Louis’s hold. “I want to _have_ a baby,” she protested. “It’s not fair.”

Louis frowned sympathetically. There were some things he just couldn’t fix. “I’m gonna go inside and get you some gummies, okay?” The CBD would calm her down a little. It couldn’t hurt. “Do you want anything else? Something to drink?”

Harry nodded shakily. “Tea,” she answered.

“Mango?”

“Another nod.”

“Okay,” Louis told her. “I’ll be right back.”

Harry was a little calmer by the time he returned to the car, but he watched carefully as she chewed one of the gummies before chasing it with a swig of herbal tea. Louis waited a few minutes before starting the car again.

“Feeling any better?” he asked her.

Harry nodded sleepily. “I still want a baby, though,” she replied serenely.

Louis sighed quietly and stared straight ahead as he shifted the car into drive and pulled out of the gas station. “I know, sweetheart. I know.”


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Things had been normal, almost, in the week since Ruby was born. Harry had gone over to the Winstons’ only a couple times after Meri was discharged, since it was a bit of a hassle for her to make her way to Beverly Hills on her own using public transport while Louis was at work with their shared car.

She seemed happier for the time she did spend with the baby, though, and to Louis, that was really the only thing that mattered.

The one missing piece in the jigsaw puzzle of normalcy that they’d been working toward since Harry had gotten out of the hospital was physical intimacy. Louis still found himself torn between his body’s pent up arousal and the inability to direct it toward something concrete.

He just couldn’t visualize how they were going to transition to having sex in a way that they’d never had sex before—in a way that Louis hadn’t had sex since he was a teenager, and even that experience hadn’t been something he’d particularly enjoyed. For all Louis’s talk about how his love for Harry was the only thing that mattered and could get them through anything, the truth was that he was terrified of fucking everything up.

Louis was rarely alone at the casita with Harry still off work while she recovered, but he’d lucked out for the afternoon in that he hadn’t been able to get home from work in time to take her to her last scheduled doctor’s appointment, which meant that Anne had ended up taking her instead. Now Louis finally had the opportunity to do something he’d been thinking about doing for quite a while. Something that was beginning to seem increasingly more necessary now that there was a finish line in sight.

It had been eight weeks since Harry’d had her surgery, and the conclusion of those first eight weeks meant that they had reached an important milestone.

If everything went well at Harry’s appointment, it would mean that it was finally safe for her to have sex again. Or well, for the first time technically. Which was why Louis was lying on his side in bed with his dick in his right hand and his phone in his left, painstakingly typing in the least cringe-inducing search terms he could think of into a porn site’s search function in hopes of magically becoming inspired.

He settled in on ‘curly haired brunette’, hoping that maybe someone would half-resemble Harry enough for this to not be weird. Louis had never really seen an issue with watching porn while in a relationship, but in all the time he’d been sleeping with Harry, he’d also never really felt the need to. Harry had always been insatiable. This new sexless phase in their relationship was something neither of them were accustomed to.

The first video Louis clicked on featured a girl that somehow resembled Gemma more than Harry, and he clicked out of it quickly, feeling weirded out by the similarity in their features. The second was a lot more promising. The girl’s hair was nearly obscuring her face, and while there were noticeable differences in her body shape as compared to Harry’s, Louis felt like he could overlook them and pretend it was Harry for the purposes of this exercise.

It wasn’t until after the guy in the video had gone down on the girl for a good five minutes before moving on to fingering her instead that Louis realized he still wasn’t fully hard. He glanced down at his cock, frowning at it as though he could shame it into cooperating. When that didn’t work, Louis decided to skip forward in the video to the good parts in hope that it would inspire some sort of reaction. All that did was make Louis wince at the blatantly fake shrieks the girl was letting out every time the guy slammed their hips together. After a few seconds of that, Louis decided to give up and exited out of the tab entirely.

Louis laid there for a minute, wondering if he’d even have more luck watching gay porn. He hadn’t seriously thought about other guys in years, not since before he and Harry had started dating. He’d had a string of one-night stands in college, but he’d never been a sex-fiend like Niall, and he’d never felt particularly unfulfilled when he was single either. Harry coming into his life had changed him permanently, but Louis wasn’t sure what that meant for either of them if they couldn’t overcome this final hurdle.

Zero orgasms and one hour later, Harry was finally home again. Louis pulled her in for a hug as soon as she was through the door. “How was it?” he asked.

“Good,” she replied excitedly. “I mean, not good, ‘cause when is an old dude poking around inside your vagina ever good, but like, he said everything looks good.”

Harry made no mention of having sex, but Louis could tell she was thinking about it from the slight flush staining her cheeks pink as she rambled on. Louis stewed all night in his thoughts, working himself up to having a discussion about where they were planning to go from here but never quite getting to the stage where the words exited his lips.

In the morning, all that changed. Louis woke up early, while Harry was still asleep next to him, feeling newly motivated. Today was the day.

Work felt even more interminable than a normal Friday with Louis’s new goal in mind. He’d been particularly useless all day, distracted by thoughts of how he was going to handle things once he got home. And it wasn’t until Louis left the office that he realized he was woefully unprepared for the inevitable aftermath.

So he made a quick detour on the way back to the grocery store, finding himself standing in the middle of the pharmacy section staring up at an array of condoms and lubes wondering why on earth he hadn’t prepped for this a little sooner.

Louis had marked the date of Harry’s official two-month recovery progression on his phone, of course, because that was just the sort of person he’d become as a functional adult with a real job and soon (hopefully), a mortgage. When the reminder had come up, however, Louis had just looked at it with dread filling his chest before tapping ‘dismiss’ and pretending he hadn’t seen it, instead of doing research or something else productive that would have left him better-equipped to handle his present-day problem.

Louis ended up dumping a handful of brands of both lubes and condoms into his basket because he had no idea what the fuck would even work anymore. He didn’t know how Harry’s body worked anymore.

Purchase in hand, Louis walked back to his car while casting furtive glances at everyone he passed, half-afraid that they could all see straight through him, that they knew exactly what his shopping bag contained and were judging him for not having a clue how to please his girlfriend nearly three fucking years into their relationship.

The only saving grace was that he didn’t have the misfortune of running into Jordan again. That would have been just his luck, but for whatever reason, the universe had apparently decided to take pity on him.

It took Louis until after they’d eaten dinner together to finally broach the subject. He was slow at getting the words out, his mouth fighting his brain as he struggled to form the question that he’d practiced over and over all day long, though his recitation was no better for it.

“Do you want to try to have sex this weekend?”

It felt like such a bizarre request to make when they’d been fucking for longer than they’d been in an official relationship, but Louis knew that he needed to ask clearly and concisely before he made any sort of subtle overture. They needed to figure out where they stood now. Honest communication, their therapist had warned them almost a year ago now, was vital.

Harry only looked marginally surprised by the request as she washed the dishes in the sink before setting them on the drying rack. “Do you want to have sex?” she asked.

“Of course,” Louis replied automatically.

Harry’s eyebrows rose. “I guess I should rephrase,” she said. “Are you ready for us to have sex?”

Louis gave the question a moment or so of good contemplation. “I don’t think I’ll be any more ready six months from now,” he admitted, “than I am tonight, so.”

That got a laugh out of Harry, at least. “Okay,” she replied. “Just let me finish up.”

Louis’s hands were clenched tightly at his sides when he reached the bedroom. There was every reason to be nervous, not that nervousness would do him any good. Still, Harry was a virgin again, essentially, and if that wasn’t bad enough, Louis had less than no idea what to do with any of her new equipment. The first and only time he’d ever had sex with a girl (before Harry), he hadn’t really done anything beyond just putting it in and thrusting a few times. It hadn’t been good for either of them.

Harry came in a few minutes later, quieting Louis’s anxious thoughts for just a moment. She started to undress without prelude, raising an eyebrow when Louis didn’t immediately do the same.

“How do you want to…?” Louis asked, deciding it was better to just get it out of the way right off the bat.

“Oh.” Harry’s expression was unreadable. “Well, I mean, I didn’t think we’d jump straight into pussy stuff right away.”

Louis had to hide his relief. He didn’t want to potentially upset her. “So like before, then?” he asked.

Harry nodded.

Naked, she looked really no different than she had even before the surgery; there was just less to look at between her legs. Her pubic hair had grown back a bit, but there was still only a light dusting over her pubic bone. The rest had been permanently removed in preparation for the surgery itself.

“You’re so pretty,” Louis told her. It was easy to say because it was the truth. He extended his hands out for her to take and then pulled her over to the edge of the bed.

“Lube?” Harry asked as she crawled up next to him before lying down on her stomach.

“Always the romantic,” Louis grumbled as he turned to pull some out of the grocery bag. After turning toward Harry again with the lube in hand, he smoothed his palm over the curve of her ass. “Just fingers for now?”

“Sure,” Harry replied. She spread her legs, making room for Louis between them.

Harry had always liked anal maybe a bit too much. She was unabashedly loud whenever Louis fingered her, could come from just a bit of stimulation against her prostate. So it was a bit of a let-down when Louis pressed his fingers into her the same way he’d done a thousand times, only for nothing at all to happen.

“You okay?” he double-checked. “It doesn’t hurt, does it?”

Harry shook her head and glanced back at him over her shoulder. “Doesn’t really feel like anything,” she confessed with a frown.

“Maybe….” Louis stopped. He didn’t have a follow up ready. Finally, after a few more seconds of fruitless searching for any angle that would produce the reactions he was used to, he withdrew his fingers and wiped them off before flopping down onto his back next to Harry with a sigh. “Maybe we should wait a little longer,” he suggested.

Harry adopted one of her classic pouts. “You can still fuck me,” she told him. “I don’t mind.”

Louis leaned over to kiss the tip of her nose. “You’re sweet,” he replied. “But I’d rather wait till we can make it good for us both. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Harry didn’t bring up sex (or the lack of it) again until after their at-home candlelit dinner on Valentine’s Day, at which point an odd look came over her face while they did the dishes together again, cluing Louis into the fact that she was about to say something that he really would rather she not.

“So I was thinking—”

“Harry—”

She cut him off with a raised finger and a sharp look. “At least let me finish my sentence before you try to argue with it,” she said before continuing where she’d left off. “Anyway, I was thinking we could try masturbating.” Harry’s voice was almost disconcertingly casual for the discussion they were having. “Like together.”

Louis contemplated it for a moment as he slowly dried a plate before setting it down with a quiet sigh. “I don’t see why not,” he finally decided.

Harry snorted. “You could try to seem a little more enthusiastic about it.”

“I’m just nervous,” Louis replied, deciding to be perfectly honest.

“About what? It’s not like I’m going to judge you on your technique.”

Louis didn’t want to be particularly honest about the why, so he stayed silent, and thankfully, Harry didn’t push for anything more.

Ironically enough, Louis’s nerves began to instantly dissipate the second that Harry started to take off her clothes. Louis just watched for a minute, openly admiring the curves of her body that he had familiarized himself with in tandem with their development. There was something special about the fact that he had been lucky enough to watch her grow and change during every step of her journey. Maybe he just needed to appreciate that a little more.

“You too,” Harry said coaxingly as she climbed onto the bed, her legs bent at the knee and spread wide in a relaxed pose.

Louis didn’t make a show of stripping down; he got undressed as quickly as possible before joining her on the bed. “Who goes first?” he asked, half-joking.

Harry didn’t take it as such. “Me, I guess,” she replied. “And then you can join in whenever you feel like it?”

Louis nodded. “Okay.”

He watched as she reached over to grab one of the brand-new bottles of lube he’d just purchased. She poured a bit onto her fingers and then passed the bottle over for Louis to take. He accepted it but didn’t take his eyes off of Harry’s hand until she pressed it up against her clit, rubbing in exploratory motions with a screwed-up look of concentration on her face.

“You okay?” Louis checked.

“It feels kind of weird,” Harry told him. “Like sort of good, but weird, too. Can you maybe like…? So I have something to focus on?”

“Sure.” Louis’s fingers were trembling ever-so-slightly when he poured out a bit of lube to slick up his cock. He wasn’t hard yet, and he was a little worried he wouldn’t be able to get hard, but he honed in his attention on Harry’s heaving chest, the swell of her tits and her pebbled nipples, the same things that had gotten him hard even before she’d transitioned. It was working now, and Louis finally looked down in relief once he’d gotten into the familiar rhythm of his hand working over the shaft, finally able to focus on what Harry was doing as well.

The movements of her fingers were clumsier than his, but that was to be expected seeing as this was all brand new to her. Louis couldn’t imagine what it must be like to have to relearn masturbation at twenty-three, and judging from the furrow of Harry’s brow, she seemed to be having a hard time with it.

Louis wanted to reassure her, but he also couldn’t seem to concentrate on making his mouth work and jerking himself off at the same time.

A minute passed, then two, and finally Harry flopped back down onto the pillows with a sigh. “Maybe it is too soon,” she lamented. “Maybe…. I don’t know.”

Louis slowly stilled his hand.

It took Harry a few more seconds to notice that he’d stopped. “You don’t have to quit on my account,” she said, sounding almost offended that he would even try.

“But—” Louis started to say.

“Come on my pussy,” Harry interrupted, the request coming from out of nowhere. Well, not nowhere, technically speaking. She’d been every bit as filthy before, just with different anatomy for Louis to ejaculate on.

“You’re sure?” Louis asked as he started up the slow rhythm of his hand sliding over his cock again.

Harry nodded eagerly. “I know you like seeing me covered in your come,” she replied with a teasing smirk. “It’s been a while since you marked me up.”

She moved her hand back down to her pussy again as Louis shuffled a bit closer on his knees, trying to get between her legs without pausing long enough to shift their positions.

“It’s been a while in general,” he warned her, his breaths starting to shorten as he got closer and closer to orgasm. It was surprisingly easy to focus on her like this, all spread out and loose-limbed and open. All of Louis’s needless worrying hadn’t prepared him for the fact that his body still knew exactly how to react to hers—it wasn’t something he’d forgotten just because so much time had passed and so many other things were different.

“More for me, then,” Harry chirped back. “Tell me when you’re close.” She was still rubbing her clit, dipping the tip of her painted middle finger inside herself every now and again like she was curious and wanted to go further, but didn’t know if she should.

It wasn’t much longer before Louis felt the tell-tale stirrings of his orgasm starting to unfurl in his gut, his balls drawing up close as the movement of his hand quickened. “Gonna come,” he grunted.

Harry immediately put her free hand down between her legs and used the fingers on both hands to spread her labia, revealing the soft pink center inside. Suddenly, desperately, Louis wanted to bury himself in that space more than anything else in the entire world. But he couldn’t.

Louis came in thick ribbons over her pussy, coating her pubic hair all the way down to the dark pink of her asshole in his semen. Harry, true to form, dipped a finger into it and pushed it ever so slightly inside of herself with a curious expression.

“Damn,” she said in obvious wonderment as she surveyed the aftermath between her thighs. “It really has been a while.”

Louis shook his head and rolled over onto his back beside her. “I still feel bad that you didn’t get to come,” he told her. He wasn’t exaggerating, either. He could feel a small pit of guilt forming inside his stomach. It was worse when he caught another glimpse of the mess he’d made of her pussy. He couldn’t help but feel like he was just using her now.

Harry rolled her eyes and pressed a quick kiss to Louis’s forehead. “You’re sweet, but it’s not that big a deal,” she insisted before climbing up off the bed. “I’m sure we’ll figure it out eventually. Now try not to beat yourself up while I’m in the shower.”

Easier said than done, Louis thought to himself as he watched her disappear.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis liked waking up before dawn. It felt like he was getting a head-start on the day, beginning things before the world had a chance to catch up. It allowed him to just lay there in bed for a few minutes with his eyes still closed as he listened to Harry softly snore into his ear. There was something comforting about knowing that he would be listening to that sound for the rest of his life.

Louis’s meditative process was abruptly cut short when a small lump of fur suddenly bounded up onto his chest, nearly knocking the wind out of him despite the kitten’s relatively inconsequential weight. Louis didn’t need to turn on the lights to know it was Tibert; the tiny kitten was a cyclone, while Harlow enjoyed a much more sedate existence.

“Calm down,” Louis murmured as he got the unruly cat under control before climbing out of bed—carefully, so as not to disturb Harry’s sleep.

It was still a little early to feed the kittens when Louis checked his phone over his own bowl of cereal, so he resigned himself to listening to the two of them mewing pitifully as they attempted to climb his legs, the scent of the milk in his bowl apparently working them up into a frenzy. If Louis had been more like Harry, their sad little faces would have probably swayed him to cave a little sooner, but Louis wasn’t Harry, and he didn’t want to disrupt the feeding schedule they’d carefully set.

“No,” Louis whispered for the seventeenth time after climbing out of the shower only for both cats to beset him again. He walked past them into the bedroom and was just starting to pull on his work clothes when the cats leapt up onto the bed again to howl at him even louder.

Louis dashed over to shoo them immediately, but it was too late. Harry rolled over onto her elbows, blinking up at Louis through bleary eyes. “What’s going on?” she asked, clearly confused at being woken up well before the time she normally regained consciousness for the day.

“Nothing,” Louis replied as he buttoned up his shirt. “The kittens are just hungry. I’ll feed them before I leave; don’t worry about it. You can go back to bed.”

But evidently now that Harry had already been woken up, she wasn’t about to be so easily assuaged. “It’s fine,” she replied through a yawn. “I can feed them.”

Louis didn’t protest, but he did follow her into the kitchen to help dish up the wet food for Harlow while Harry measured the appropriate amount of dry food to put in Tibert’s bowl. They had to monitor both cats carefully while they ate, because even though Tibert refused to partake in eating the wet food, Harlow had no qualms about stealing some of the dry food right out of his bowl, something that had already been attempted on numerous occasions in the few weeks since they’d adopted the kittens.

Harry was unsteady on her feet throughout the whole process, clearly still half-asleep despite her insistence on getting out of bed to help.

Louis looked at her with a degree of concern as she helped him with his tie. “You got more sleep than I did,” he commented.

She just waved him off as she stepped away again. “I always get more sleep than you,” she reminded him. “They said the new dose is fine, so maybe I’m still getting used to it.”

“Okay.” Louis gave himself a last once-over before moving to the shoe rack to grab his wingtips from the array of shoes that belonged mostly to Harry. “Just so you know, I’m probably not going to be home for lunch,” he told her as he tied the laces. “Would rather get home earlier in the afternoon.” He felt a little more secure in not checking in on her during the day now that she’d been doing a little better at coping with the loneliness, but Louis still tried to let her know his schedule anyway just so she wouldn’t be surprised.

Harry nodded. She had Harlow cradled in her arms like a baby to keep him from stealing the remainder of Tibert’s food, and Louis could hear him purring even from several feet away as she scratched his belly.

“That’s fine,” she replied slowly. “I was thinking about going over to the Winstons’ to help Meri with the baby again anyway.”

Louis nodded. “You should do that,” he encouraged. “That sounds like a good idea. Is your mom making dinner again tonight?”

“I think so.”

“Awesome. I’ll let you know when I’m on my way home, okay?”

Harry murmured something vaguely affirmative as Louis moved over to kiss her quickly before giving each of the kittens a goodbye pet. “Love you,” he said on his way out the door.

“Love you too.”

Usually Louis left early enough to avoid the perils of rush hour traffic on his way to work. This time, though, he had the misfortune of running into a new patch of construction on his typical route, forcing him to detour and adding another twenty minutes to his already interminably long commute. As a result, he was already in a foul mood by the time he finally arrived at the office, only to be beset upon by Jordan almost as soon as we walked in the door.

“Sorry, but can we do this another day?” Louis asked after being followed all the way from the lobby to his cubicle while Jordan chattered away in his ear for the entire duration of the journey. He dumped his backpack onto the ground next to his chair with a sigh. “I’m already swamped with the other two cases, and I don’t really have the time to work on another one.”

Jordan frowned apologetically. “Paul said this takes top priority because of the fight this weekend. The feds are trying to seize the prize money if he wins.”

Louis had to suppress the urge to roll his eyes. Honestly, he didn’t really much care for the ethics of shielding rich people’s tax money from the federal government, and he sure as hell wasn’t that fond of the people he worked with, but it was a well-paying job that could give him and Harry the opportunity to live a comfortable life, so sometimes he just had to remind himself of that before making the decision to grin and bear it.

“When does he want all of this done by?” Louis asked as he let his head sink into his hands. He’d wanted to go home a bit early today, but that wasn’t looking like much of an option anymore.

“End of the day, if possible.”

Louis groaned loudly.

“I can tell him it’s too much,” Jordan volunteered nervously. “I’m sure someone else can handle it.”

Louis gave it a second’s thought before lifting his head to shake it. “No, I’ll do it, I’m just.” Louis sighed. “It’s gonna be a long day, I guess.”

“Yeah.” Jordan bounced on his heels for a moment while Louis stared at him before remembering that he was there to deliver the necessary documents for Louis to go over. “Oh, right. Here.”

“Thanks.” Louis noticed the heft of the manila folder with a wince. “You know, if you want to take the empty cubicle at the end, this will probably go faster,” he told Jordan. The floor they were on currently was technically reserved for the attorneys at the firm, and Jordan was still a clerk, but Louis would vouch for him if anyone complained that he was using a desk that would otherwise be vacant.

“Really? Awesome, I’ll go grab my stuff real quick.”

Thanks to the new workload that Louis had to get through before the end of the day, he didn’t even have a chance to look at his phone until the two of them took a break for lunch, at which point he noticed that he had two missed calls from Meri, both from a couple hours ago. There was no text or voicemail left with an explanation, which instantly made Louis panic.

“Actually,” he said, taking care to keep his voice calm and stead as he paused while Jordan held open the elevator doors to go through, “do you mind picking me up a sandwich and just bringing it back? It’ll probably go faster if I keep working while you’re gone.”

Jordan looked mildly disappointed at the prospect of having to get lunch alone, but he just nodded and stepped back to close the elevator doors, leaving Louis alone in the lobby with his phone clutched in his trembling hands.

Louis called Meri back as soon as he reached the men’s restroom.

“Hello?” There was nothing in her voice to indicate that Louis’s panic was the right response after her missed calls, but he couldn’t seem to quell the dread now that he’d let it take over.

“Hi, Mer. Is everything okay? Why did you call me?”

“Um, just a second.” There was muted speech on the other end of the line, like Meri was covering the microphone with her hand so that Louis wouldn’t be able to hear. When she replied again, her voice sounded a bit more subdued than when she’d answered, and the nauseous churning in Louis’s gut turned into a literal whirlpool of nerves in response. “Harry’s here,” Meri told him. It didn’t do much to bring him comfort, considering. “Something happened, but she asked me not to tell you over the phone. Can you come by after work to pick her up?”

“Yeah,” Louis replied dully. “Of course. You can’t tell me anything?”

“No, sorry. It’s better if we talk about it in person.”

“But Harry’s okay, right?”

“She’s not hurt,” Meri said in a manner that was far too pointed for comfort. “She’s playing with Ruby right now.”

“Okay.” Louis wasn’t sure what else to say. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to get through the rest of his day either knowing now that something had happened to Harry and that he wasn’t going to be told what until after he arrived in Beverly Hills later that evening. “Okay, just tell her I love her, then.” He didn’t want to push to talk to her on the phone if she wasn’t feeling up to it, and the fact that it was Meri that had called him instead of Harry herself seemed to indicate just that.

“I will,” Meri assured him before hanging up.

Louis worked like a zombie for the rest of the afternoon, hardly able to answer any of Jordan’s questions as they struggled to wrap up the new case they’d been assigned out of the blue. His sandwich sat untouched on his desk next to his computer for hours; when it was finally time to clock out, Louis simply threw it into the garbage, unopened and uneaten.

Despite all of Meri’s reassurances, Louis knew that something was seriously wrong. Meri wouldn’t have gone to the trouble of calling him so early in the day to ask him to pick Harry up if it wasn’t because of something bad.

Louis raced down the freeway into Beverly Hills, barely adhering to traffic laws and going at least five over the speed limit at all times. It was late enough thanks to the extra work he’d had to do that he ended up bypassing traffic entirely, and he told himself that it was for the best that he’d spent extra time at the office since he probably would have arrived at the Winstons’ in the same amount of time anyway.

Harry was a tear-stricken mess when he finally walked in. Meri headed him off before Louis could say a word to her, pulling him aside and pushing him down onto the couch in the living room instead. Her eyes darted between Louis’s confused face and the open doorway through which Harry was still fussing over Ruby in her crib before finally settling on Louis’s with a determined gaze.

“Something happened on the train,” Meri explained carefully in a quiet voice.

Louis frowned. “What do you mean?”

Meri’s eyes went back and forth again, like they were on a static track, unable to look anywhere else except between Louis and Harry. “Someone touched her,” Meri clarified, “while she was on the train.”

“Oh.” Louis didn’t know what else to say. It was like his mind had gone blank, completely unable to process the information it had just been given.

“She’s upset,” Meri continued. “She’s going to be upset for a while. I don’t want you to try and make it seem like it wasn’t a big deal, because for her, it was. Okay?”

Louis nodded dully.

Meri sat back and sighed. She seemed satisfied with his reaction. She’d always been protective of Harry, ever since they first met way back when while Harry was still in school, so Louis had no problems with deferring to her judgment on the matter. And if he was being perfectly honest, Meri likely had a lot more experience with what Harry had just gone through than Louis did. He’d been subject to a few overenthusiastic gropes in gay bars and at Pride, but that was different. This was…Louis didn’t have a word in his vocabulary for what this was.

“Can I talk to her?” Louis wondered. He was asking more for input than permission; but he would keep his distance for the moment if Meri thought Harry still needed some space.

Meri hesitated, and then finally, nodded. “She’s still a bit on edge,” Meri warned. “I wouldn’t try to touch her without asking first. Just in case.”

Louis nodded in acknowledgment and got up off the couch, heading into the bedroom to see how Harry was doing.

There were still tear tracks on Harry’s face as she rocked Ruby in her arms, but she turned to face Louis with a smile as he came into the room. “Hey,” she said softly.

“Hey,” Louis replied. He took a seat on the edge of the bed. “Do you want to talk about what happened?” he tried. “Or something else, if you want.”

Harry’s face dropped, and for a moment, Louis thought he’d made a mistake even just reminding her of it. But she nodded, her expression calm as she placed Ruby back down in her crib before moving over to take a seat next to Louis.

Louis offered an outstretched hand. He thumbed gently over Harry’s skin as she took it, laying both their hands over his thigh instead of placing them in her lap like he might have under other circumstances.

“Meri didn’t tell me much,” he admitted, hoping it was enough of an opening for her to ease into an explanation without Louis having to interrogate her to get answers about what had happened.

Harry nodded. She sniffled, wiping a hand across her face. “Guys like…catcall me sometimes, I guess,” she finally said in a broken whisper. “But I don’t know, I just…I didn’t really take it that seriously. Or I just didn’t think—”

She paused for a minute, taking deep breaths to collect herself before continuing. “I didn’t get the talk that Gemma got,” she said sadly. “Like, I sort of remember my mom sitting Gemma down when she was thirteen after she’d just kissed a boy for the first time, and her getting told that the boys she liked might not always be good people and that she had to be careful. And I never got that talk, you know? I never really—I just wasn’t expecting it, I guess.”

“Whatever happened—” Louis paused, doublechecking with himself to make sure that he wasn’t about to say the wrong thing. “Not being ready for it doesn’t mean it’s your fault,” he told her.

Harry smiled a bit. “I know,” she replied. “I’m just still processing it, I guess. I’m still not sure…it’s hard to wrap my head around.”

“You don’t have to tell me the details if you don’t want to,” Louis said. He squeezed her hand a little tighter, both for his own sense of security just as much as his desire to reassure her that he was still there.

“No, it’s fine, I’m just….” She paused again, swallowing hard. When she finally continued, her eyes were fixed on where their hands were tangled in Louis’s lap. “There was some old guy in front of me on the train and he just like, grabbed me right before he got off at his stop.”

Harry finally looked up as she made a gesture with her free hand, demonstrating exactly where the man had touched her, and Louis saw red. But he bit his tongue, waiting for her to finish.

“I guess I’m just…. Like the whole rest of the way I kept thinking about what if that happened before the surgery, you know? Like what if he’d touched my dick instead and decided that was a good enough reason to hurt me? I can’t—” She broke off into hiccupping sobs, and it took everything in Louis’s power not to reach out and pull her into a hug.

“Why don’t we stay here for a few more hours,” Louis suggested. “I’ll call your mom, have her check in on the kittens. We can have dinner with Ben when he gets back and then we’ll go home afterward, okay? And if you want to come back again to play with Ruby, I can drive you before I go to work next time.” Louis wasn’t foolish enough to think that his suggestion was going to necessarily fix anything, but Harry’s expression looked a little bit brighter as she took it all in.

“Okay,” she agreed. She blinked the residual tears away from her eyes and then glanced up at Louis again. “Can you ask Meri if it’s okay to order in Chinese? We haven’t gone out in months and—”

“I’ll ask,” Louis reassured her. He started to stand up and then paused as he glanced down at Harry. “Is it all right if I kiss you?” he asked.

Harry nodded eagerly and pushed up on the palms of her hands to meet him halfway. “I love you,” she said as they broke apart. “You’re perfect.”

“You are,” Louis replied with a smile. “And I love you, too.”

Louis was slightly worried when Ben came home that something about his touch would set Harry off again, but she was all smiles when Ben immediately pulled her into a fast embrace. She was in a much better mood after dinner, but she still didn’t want to leave just yet, so Louis made small talk with Ben and Meri in the living room for an hour or two while she continued to dote on Ruby until it was too late in the evening to justify staying any longer.

Harry fell asleep readily on the drive back to Anne’s house. Louis glanced over at her at every stoplight, as though to reassure himself that she was really there, that nothing had happened to her. She hardly woke up even when Louis helped her dilate before putting her to bed, and even though it was late enough that Louis should have joined her, his nerves were still too frayed to even think about sleeping for another hour at least.

Instead, he found himself pulling up his email and shooting off a quick message to Harry’s therapist, asking if they could move her next appointment to an earlier date. As much as Louis was reticent to attend Harry’s sessions—though he’d never utter a single ounce of complaint out loud—too much had happened in the past few weeks that neither of them could ignore.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry was insatiable now that she could take baths again.

Full, soaking baths—not the pale imitations she’d been subject to upon first getting out of the hospital where the warm water had only provided a sort of neutralizing barrier so she could pee without pain—had been off limits until she’d hit the eight-week mark in her recovery. Now that she had, it was nearly impossible to get her out of the tub.

Which was why Louis wasn’t the least bit surprised when he came home on a Thursday afternoon to find Harry soaking in a warm bubble bath, her hair tied up in a bun to keep it out of the water as she relaxed in the tub, surrounded on all sides by flickering candles that smelled like apples and cinnamon.

“Having fun?” Louis asked as he leaned against the door frame, his arms crossed over his chest as he stared at her.

“I _was_ ,” Harry said with a soft smile. She opened her eyes and lifted her eyebrows in invitation. “You should get in,” she added.

“You sure there’s room?” Louis asked, but he was already stripping off his clothes with every intention of joining her.

“Just as much as there was the last time that we took a bath together,” Harry pointed out.

It took a bit of doing, but somehow, they managed to cram Louis in behind Harry, his chest pressed against her back. Naturally, his cock started to take an immediate interest in response to their increased proximity.

Harry turned her head to look over her shoulder at Louis. “Well, that didn’t take long,” she remarked.

“We haven’t had sex in months,” Louis pointed out.

“That was your idea.”

Louis shrugged. “My dick doesn’t know that.”

A pensive look came over Harry’s face. “Do you…” she started in a tentative voice. “Do you want to try something? Again?”

Louis was at a loss. He’d been giving straight porn the occasional try despite his disastrous first attempt—feeling weird and uncomfortable about it the whole time—because he thought it would at least help to familiarize him with Harry’s new downstairs business. He’d decided to loop Harry in the last couple times, too. For all Harry’s experience with other women, she wasn’t quite sure what she liked yet, either, so Louis thought it would be better for them both if they were at least on an even playing field.

Louis hadn’t even attempted to delve into anything involving actual penetration yet. He’d wanted to start slow, focus on making Harry feel good first. If it wasn’t good for her, then it wouldn’t be good for him. End of story.

“Do you want me to touch you?” he asked her. He would understand if she didn’t. Even with her trouble orgasming aside, her experience on the train had only been a few days ago, and they’d hardly talked about it since. Louis didn’t know how she was feeling about sex, whether the incident had impacted her negatively in a way that meant intimacy would have to be on the backburner for a little while.

“Mhmm.” Evidently not, then.

Harry sank back against his chest and spread her legs a little wider, her chest rising and falling a little more rapidly as she waited for him to move.

Louis slowly slid a hand down from her shoulder, across her nipple, down her stomach, and into the water. He paused with his palm against her lower stomach, holding his breath for a second before letting it out in a loud exhale against the side of her neck.

“You’re sure?” Louis asked her, letting his anxiety get the better of him even though he wanted to trust that she knew her limits. “I don’t want to do anything to upset you.”

Harry rolled her head around to glare straight at Louis. “I understand your concern,” she said firmly. “I know I was upset when it happened, but I’ve had time to get over it and I feel fine, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Great.” Harry relaxed again, letting her head loll against Louis’s shoulder. “Can you please touch my pussy now? I feel like I’m gonna explode.”

Louis sucked in a deep breath as his hand descended once again. She was warmer now between her thighs than she’d ever been before, and that made Louis’s dick twitch against her back as he wondered just how hot she’d be inside when he finally fucked her.

“Tell me if anything hurts,” Louis said, his hand pausing in its path just before its intended destination. She had healed up nicely, but there were still scars that had yet to fade, and Louis didn’t know just how sensitive she would be. “Or even just doesn’t feel good,” he added.

Harry snorted. “Can you just get on with it already?”

Louis rolled his eyes. He skimmed his hand even lower, his brain still surprised when he didn’t encounter a hard cock at the end of the journey even though he knew, consciously, not to expect anything of the sort.

Harry’s pussy was soft under his fingers, the hair that had grown back just as downy as he remembered, nothing like his own wiry pubic hair that Harry seemed to love for some reason (she’d practically cried the one time he tried to manscape, so he hadn’t ever done it again). Harry’s pubes were dark enough that Louis could see the shadow of them under the soapy water when he moved his hand, a tantalizing void.

Louis stroked the inside of Harry’s thigh first, the sensitive strip of skin on the outside of her labia. She shivered in his hold. “Have you been touching yourself since the last time?” he asked her.

Harry nodded. “Still couldn’t…” she struggled to answer, “couldn’t make myself come, though.”

Louis didn’t have much hope that he’d be successful where she’d failed—at least not the first time—but if he could make her feel good, at least, then none of his efforts would be in vain.

Harry panted softly as he slowly traced the tip of his middle finger over the seam of her cunt, not enough to part her lips, but enough to have her wiggling against him, instinctively searching for more.

“Is this too much?” Louis asked as he finally brushed his thumb over her clit.

Harry shook her head furiously. “Keep going,” she urged.

Louis wasn’t surprised by her reaction. When she’d still had a cock, she loved it when Louis focused on the head, rubbing torturous circles on the underside until she was sobbing and begging him to let her come. This wasn’t so different, even though it felt that way under Louis’s fingers. But it was still the same body, the same brain, the same nerve endings, the same _Harry_. And Louis knew what Harry liked.

He started a rhythmic motion with his first two fingers, moving them over her clit with enough pressure to have Harry tensing up all over, her hands forming claws on either side of the tub.

“Good?” Louis asked, not letting up for a second.

Harry nodded tightly but didn’t respond. Her breathing went ragged, her hands clenching against the edge of the tub until her knuckles turned white. Finally, she held her breath, and still Louis kept going.

A minute later, all the air rushed out of Harry in one big whoosh. She squirmed away from the movement of Louis’s hand. “I can’t,” she whined.

Louis drew his hand back and tried not to feel a bit hurt by the rejection, even though he knew that’s not really what it was. “Why not?”

Harry shrugged. “I don’t know,” she replied, sounding a little miserable about it, and for good reason. “I thought everything would be back to normal by now.” She’d been assured by the only other trans girl she knew who had undergone surgery with her same doctor that she’d been able to come almost as soon as she’d gotten out of the hospital. Harry’s disappointment was almost tangible.

“I’ll see if I can find some stuff online,” Louis reassured her. “We’ll figure it out, okay? And we can try different stuff to see if something else works instead.”

Harry still looked downtrodden when she turned her head to meet his mouth, but she nodded in agreement. “Okay,” she said. “Thank you.” She twisted around a bit more, reaching for Louis’s cock, which was still standing up ramrod straight in the water between them.

Louis grabbed for her wrist before she could touch him. “No orgasms for you, no orgasms for me,” he said warningly. He was going to stick to that conviction after the post-orgasm guilt he’d felt last time Harry had convinced him to cave. And this time she wasn’t going to be able to sway him, no matter how long it took. It just didn’t seem fair otherwise. Harry loved orgasms. Louis felt like an asshole for not being able to give them to her.

Harry made a face as she wrenched her hand out of Louis’s grip before standing up in the tub. “You’re no fun,” she said as she stared down at him, her naked body glistening and gleaming in the candlelight like a statue of some ancient goddess.

Louis’s cock gave a feeble throb as he palmed himself under the water. It was good motivation, he told himself. He was going to make sure Harry came even if it killed him.

Louis gave himself a few more minutes to calm down before finally emerging from the bathroom. He followed Harry into the bedroom and flopped down on the bed in just his towel, watching as she tried on dress after dress, seemingly unsatisfied with every result.

“I like the blue,” Louis finally volunteered when it seemed that there would be no end to her indecision.

Harry picked the aforementioned robin egg blue chiffon dress back up and held it against herself with a pensive expression. “It’s not too fancy?” she asked.

“I’m sure all the other girls will be dressed up,” Louis assured her. “It’s a nice restaurant, so.”

“Hmm.” She didn’t seem convinced even as she pulled the dress up over her head. “What are you going to wear.”

Louis shook his head. “I dunno. Cardigan and dark jeans, I guess?” Sunday best wasn’t really his style, but he knew he needed to put forth an effort for all of this wedding stuff. He watched Harry a little longer, procrastinating his own need to get dressed, and then all of a sudden he remembered that it was Thursday, and that he’d rescheduled Harry’s therapy appointment for Saturday morning. Without telling her. “Hey—” he started to say, only to be interrupted by Harry backing up toward him with the two halves of the back of her dress pinched between her fingers.

“Button me up?”

Louis did so in silence as he struggled to find the best way to break the news to her. He waited until he was finished and she’d turned around again, a smile gracing her face now that she’d had the opportunity to look at herself in the mirror.

“You still aren’t dressed,” she pointed out on her way back into the bathroom to do her hair.

“Wanted to talk about something first,” Louis said as he trotted after her.

Harry spared him a half-second glance before focusing on her reflection again. “Okay.”

Louis sucked in a breath to steel himself for the inevitability of Harry’s reaction to the news. “I moved your next therapy appointment to Saturday,” he said quickly.

Harry didn’t disappoint. She turned to stare at him with an icy glare, her hair half-braided, though the effect was no less intimidating for it. “Why?” she replied immediately, before just as quickly adding, “You didn’t even ask me first.”

Louis shrugged apologetically. “There just wasn’t a good time,” he told her, even though it was a fairly flimsy excuse. “We didn’t have any plans for this weekend, so I thought it wouldn’t hurt.” He didn’t elaborate on the reason he’d wanted to do it in the first place, which was that he was concerned about Harry’s mental well-being after seeing how she’d reacted to Ruby’s birth as well as the incident on the train—not to mention the absolute travesty their sex life had become in just the past couple weeks. “Can we not argue about this right now?” Louis tried, hoping he wasn’t pushing his luck by trying to head Harry off before it could turn into a real fight.

Harry sighed, shaking her head as she turned back toward the mirror to finish her hair and makeup. “Fine,” she replied curtly. “But you know I hate it when you don’t ask me before making decisions. I’m not a baby.”

“I know,” Louis said. “I’m sorry.”

“Just get dressed,” she told him. “I don’t want to be late.”

The dinner they were attending with the entirety of Louis’s family wasn’t technically wedding-related, but Louis was certain that wedding talk would dominate the majority of the meal, and when they finally arrived at the restaurant they were meeting the others at, Louis soon found himself proved correct.

There was only a short opportunity for introductions before Lottie and the other girls—with Jay’s encouragement, of course—started to discuss wedding plans. Louis stayed out of it for the most part, only giving his input when it was specifically requested. Harry did her best to follow along, but he could tell she was feeling a bit excluded by the time their food came out a good thirty minutes after they’d sat down.

Louis reached over to squeeze her hand under the table and took the next opportunity to steer the conversation in a different direction altogether. It worked to a degree, but it wasn’t long before Lottie managed to circle right back around to the upcoming bridal shower. Louis rolled his eyes as covertly as possible (though he got a glare from his mother in response) and ate his food in silence, grateful that at least he and Harry were getting a free meal out of it even though there seemed to be no reason at all for them to even be there.

The only saving grace, Louis decided, was that Lottie hadn’t brought her fiancé with her. Tommy had a game, apparently, something Louis was extremely grateful for seeing as he still hadn’t forgotten the fact that she still had yet to tell him about Harry. Louis definitely didn’t want to deal with the fallout if that revelation were to occur at the dinner table of all places.

The wedding discussion finally cooled down again toward the end of the meal, and Louis found himself engaging instead in giving life updates to his mom, who wouldn’t stop complaining that he never called or came to see her, despite all his insistences that he was busy with work and didn’t have a lot of free time to drive all the way across town to Valencia just to chat.

By the time they finished eating and started the long walk back to their car, Louis was in a much better mood than he’d been in before the dinner. The same couldn’t be said of Harry, though, who had been glaring down at her phone in silence for nearly two straight minutes while they walked down the sidewalk together.

“You okay?” Louis finally decided to ask, after it became clear that Harry wasn’t going to explain what was wrong without a bit of prompting first. “Did something happen?”

“I really don’t get why your sister wouldn’t ask me to be a bridesmaid,” she said in a quiet voice.

Ah. So that was the problem. Louis shoved his hands into his coat pockets and sighed. “That’s the downside of having a billion sisters, I guess,” he replied, trying to make his reassurance a little more light-hearted in hopes of cheering her up. “They probably didn’t want to make things uneven on Tommy’s side. I’m not even a groomsman, so—”

Louis was cut off by Harry shoving her phone straight into his face. It was too close at first to make out anything except for the brightness of her screen, so Louis stopped short in the middle of the sidewalk and carefully pushed her hand away from his eyes so that he could make out whatever it is that she was actually trying to show him.

It took Louis a few seconds to read the text and understand just what it was that he was seeing. _Tell Lots I just got my dress. Sorry I couldn’t come to dinner with you guys! Lots of love._

The message was from Gemma, but it wasn’t until Harry moved her finger to scroll down to the attached picture that Louis put the pieces of the puzzle together. It was a photo of Harry’s sister wearing an identical bridesmaid’s dress to the ones that all of Louis’s sisters had been given for Lottie’s wedding.

“Oh,” Louis said dumbly. He didn’t have a good excuse on-hand for why Lottie would intentionally exclude Harry, but he was afraid to jump to any conclusions—mostly because the only conclusions that had come immediately to mind were the worst ones he could think of. “Um, I mean, I can talk to her about it if you want?” he offered. Louis wasn’t really sure what to do in this scenario. Sure, Gemma and Lottie had been friends first, but Harry was just as close to Lottie now as her sister. Or so Louis had thought, at least.

Harry sighed unhappily as she tucked her phone away before grabbing at Louis’s hands. They started to walk again, their car coming into sight at the end of the road only a few seconds later. “You don’t have to,” she told him, “but if you do, can you just make sure it doesn’t seem like it’s a big deal?”

Louis nodded as he thumbed over his car keys in his pocket. “Yeah, of course, babe. I’m sure it’s just a misunderstanding.”

Harry nodded, but the look on her face seemed to imply that she didn’t share his optimism.

“We’ll get it sorted out,” Louis promised her. He didn’t want to end the discussion on a sour note, especially not since they had an hour’s drive back to the house ahead of them. “And hey, when we get married, you can always get your revenge on Lottie by not making her a bridesmaid in return, yeah?”

That finally got a laugh out of Harry, and Louis pulled her in close as they walked the remainder of the way to the car, his lips instinctively moving to kiss the side of her face in reassurance.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

“I’m sorry.”

“You said that already,” Harry pointed out in an irritable tone. She stared out the window at the passing scenery, tapping her nails against her thigh while Louis glanced over nervously every few seconds.

“I know,” he replied, “but you still seem angry.”

“And you apologizing isn’t going to change that, so you might as well stop.”

Louis swallowed the automatic response that rose to his lips, deciding it was better to just keep his mouth shut for once. He didn’t want to make things any worse.

The rest of the drive to Dr. Hawkins’s office was conducted in tense silence, and neither the tension nor the silence dissipated once they finally arrived. Luckily, they didn’t have to sit in the waiting room long; Dr. Hawkins called them back almost as soon as they walked through the door, and then it was the three of them sitting in tense silence instead.

Dr. Hawkins stared at Louis and Harry in turns with her lips pursed, waiting for either one of them to say something. When that didn’t happen, she let out a quiet sigh and reclined slightly in her chair before opening her mouth to speak. “Is something going on that I should know about?” she said.

“Ask Louis,” Harry replied immediately.

Dr. Hawkins blinked twice before turning slightly to face Louis instead. “You were the one that wanted to move up today’s appointment, right?” she asked placidly. “Was there a particular reason for that?”

“Yes,” Louis replied in a halting tone. He’d rehearsed everything he’d wanted to say during the long drive, but now that he was here, face to face with Harry’s therapist, he couldn’t seem to make the words come out. “I guess…we’ve been dealing with a lot since the last appointment? And I thought it would be better if we could talk about it sooner rather than later.” He looked over at Harry, but she was still glaring at her feet, ignoring him for the moment.

“Let’s just start by listing what you’re concerned about,” Dr. Hawkins prompted. “We can go into detail if we need to afterward.”

“Okay.” Louis drew in a deep breath before launching straight into it. “Um, so I know we’ve only talked about Harry’s pregnancy dysphoria a couple times, but our friends just had a baby and I guess that was kind of a trigger for it? So I thought maybe that was something we could talk about.” He glanced at Harry again; still nothing. “Also, there was an…incident on the train a little bit ago, where this guy grabbed Harry, and we were both really…. It was a lot to deal with, I guess.” He paused, not sure if he should open up now about the last thing after being subjected to Harry’s moodiness all morning over the fact that he’d rescheduled her appointment.

“Is that everything you wanted to talk about today?” Dr. Hawkins asked.

Louis looked over at her, feeling briefly panicked. He had to remind himself that she was a therapist, not a mind reader. “Um, not exactly. We’ve also been having some issues with having sex? So there’s um. That, too.”

Louis could tell that Harry was even more incensed now that he’d brought up all the things she’d been trying to avoid having a talk about since they’d occurred, but Louis didn’t really think that was the healthiest thing for either of them. He told himself this was for the best, that even if Harry gave him the cold shoulder all weekend that it would still be beneficial in the long run.

“Okay,” Dr. Hawkins said as she jotted something down in her notes. “Harry, do you want to add anything?”

“Not particularly,” Harry replied in a flat tone.

There was a silence that followed Harry’s response that made Louis’s fingers cramp from how tightly he was clenching them into fists against the tops of his thighs. He waited for Dr. Hawkins to say something, anything, but instead of continuing to question Harry about the subjects Louis had already brought up, she turned back toward him, her expression considering.

“I’d like to get your thoughts on these things, if that’s all right,” she said to Louis.

Louis was caught off guard at being consulted before Harry, but he nodded stiffly. “Okay,” he agreed. “Um, where should I start?”

“Wherever you’d like,” Dr. Hawkins replied unhelpfully.

Louis nodded. He started off by explaining what had happened after they’d gone to see Ruby, how Harry had broken down on the drive back from the hospital. He explained that it wasn’t something he’d anticipated having to deal with again, since he’d thought (foolishly) that Harry’s surgery would somehow fix all of her dysphoria no matter what the cause.

“Unfortunately,” Dr. Hawkins said once he’d finished, “this will probably just be something the two of you will have to deal with. There are advances being made that may someday allow trans women to carry fertilized donor eggs to term, but that’s still a long way out from being a feasible solution for you. Have you considered surrogacy?”

Louis turned his head toward Harry, reflexively seeking her input, but she didn’t look back. “No,” he finally answered. “We always talked about adopting, if we had the money to do it someday.”

Dr. Hawkins nodded and made a short note before meeting Louis’s eyes again. “I only suggest surrogacy because it might provide Harry with a way to experience pregnancy vicariously. Provided the surrogate is someone who’d be comfortable doing that, of course.”

“What if that just makes her more upset?” Louis wondered.

Dr. Hawkins shook her head. “It’s something you and Harry would have to figure out for yourselves when you decide you’re ready to start a family.” This time she was the one who looked over at Harry as though expecting input; she didn’t get any either. “Should we move on to the next thing for now?”

Louis nodded. His explanation of what had happened to Harry on the train was a bit more difficult. He hadn’t experienced any of it firsthand, just the aftermath, and even now he wasn’t quite sure how she was handling what had happened.

Dr. Hawkins didn’t even acknowledge Louis after he’d finished speaking this time. “Harry, is this something you’d be okay with us discussing today?”

“I’d really rather not,” she replied darkly.

“Okay,” Dr. Hawkins said as she turned back toward Louis again. “Let’s talk about sex, then. How long has it been since Harry was cleared by the doctor?”

“About two weeks?”

“And have you tried to have sex since then?”

Louis licked over his bottom lip and swallowed hard. “Not like, not anything penetrative. Well—we tried anal first, but it wasn’t really the same.”

Dr. Hawkins’s face remained as stoic as ever despite the fact that Louis was practically withering away from embarrassment right in front of her. “Physically or psychologically?” she asked.

“Physically,” Louis replied. “It just didn’t feel as good. And I feel weird about it if I’m the only one who orgasms when we have sex, so….”

“What about masturbation?”

“We’ve tried it a couple times,” Louis answered with a shrug. “Nothing’s worked so far.”

Dr. Hawkins nodded and opened her mouth to respond, but before she could get a single word out, Harry suddenly cut in.

“Can we do the rest of the session alone?” Harry asked in a clear voice.

Dr. Hawkins looked slightly surprised by the request but didn’t react as such. “Louis, are you all right with that?”

“Yeah,” he replied a bit dazedly. “Of course. If that’s what Harry wants.”

Louis was feeling a bit hurt by the request as he walked back to the waiting room to actually _wait_ , for once, but he reassured himself with the knowledge that at least the hour would be more productive for Harry than if she’d continued to ignore him and Dr. Hawkins both for the remainder of the session.

It wasn’t until he’d been sitting down staring at the fish tank on the other side of the room for several minutes that Louis realized he could be using his time more efficiently. He checked the clock, guessing that Lottie would probably be awake by now if not all the way out of bed, and called her, deciding to settle the bridesmaid drama in an attempt at having something to appease Harry with on the drive home.

Lottie already sounded annoyed by the phone call before Louis even had a chance to explain why he was calling. “It’s not a great morning for this, Louis. Can we make it quick?”

“Sure,” he replied breezily. After dealing with Harry all morning, one little bout of crankiness from his sister was practically a walk in the park. “Want to tell me why you made Gemma a bridesmaid but not Harry?”

There were a couple beats of silence before Lottie responded. “It’s not what you think,” she said.

That incensed Louis more than any answer he could have anticipated her giving. “Which is what, exactly?”

“For fuck’s sake, Louis, I didn’t know it was going to be this big a deal. I just didn’t think she’d want the extra stress of having to worry about the wedding planning stuff.”

Louis sighed. “You could have just asked, Lots.”

“If she really wants to be part of the bridal party, she can. I wasn’t trying to exclude her on purpose.”

Louis pinched the bridge of his nose and suppressed the urge to say one of the ten things he wanted to say to Lottie in response to her chronic self-absorption and inability to put herself in other people’s shoes. He’d hoped it would be something she eventually grew out of, but he was beginning to realize that it might just be a part of her personality that he and Harry would both have to learn to live with. “I’ll let her know,” he said instead. “You can go do your stuff now. I guess I’ll see you around.”

Louis somehow felt more mentally taxed after a less than five-minute conversation with his sister than he had immediately following the grueling twenty-minute interrogation at Dr. Hawkins’s hands. That psychological exhaustion was only amplified as the hour dragged on, past even the point at which their sessions normally ended, until Harry finally emerged a good fifteen minutes after the hour, looking every bit as worn out as Louis now felt and then some.

He got up as soon as she opened the door, immediately stepping into her space to give her a hug without any thought for the fight they’d had preceding the appointment.

Harry returned the embrace and let out a soft, shuddering sob against Louis’s shoulder.

“You okay?” Louis asked in a quiet voice as he dragged his fingers up and down her spine.

“Yeah, just. Think I’m gonna have a nap when we get home, if that’s okay.”

“Yeah, of course. You can sleep in the car if you want. I’ll turn the radio down.” Louis decided to leave the news about his phone call with Lottie for later. Whatever Harry and Dr. Hawkins had talked about, she was clearly too fragile to handle any sort of added stressors at the moment.

Harry didn’t end up getting much sleep in the car and as a result, was even crankier and more on edge when they finally got home. Louis decided to get some food in her first before letting her go take a nap, which ended up being a mistake once he turned on the garbage disposal to clear the sink of excess chopped veggies only for everything he’d just dumped to come straight back up again.

“Oh shit,” Louis said in shock as he watched the sink fill up at a rapid pace.

Harry took one look at the mess and immediately burst into tears.

After several minutes of unproductive panic that ended with their entire supply of bath towels bunched up on the floor next to the sink, they both decided to call Liam rather than bothering Anne with the issue.

Liam, ever the one to come to the aid of a friend in need, was at the house in a flash, a stash of tools in one hand and another stack of towels in the other. When he spotted the array already covering the kitchen floor, he set his own down on the table and shrugged sheepishly. “I wasn’t sure how bad it was,” he confessed.

Once Liam had ascertained the cause of the problem and evaluated his ability to fix it, which he’d thankfully decided he could, Louis finally let himself relax long enough to put Harry to bed for a nap (along with the kittens, who Liam was unfortunately allergic to). After contemplating the pros and cons for a moment, Louis agreed with Harry’s request for a bit of CBD oil, just to be sure that she wouldn’t lie there worrying about the sink and whatever had happened with Dr. Hawkins instead of actually sleeping.

“You know you can talk to me about what happened at therapy,” Louis told Harry as she laid there quietly with both kittens curled up on her lap, letting him play with her hair as she tried to fall asleep.

“I know,” she murmured without opening her eyes. “But we don’t have to tell each other everything.”

Louis considered that for a moment. Their lives were definitely a lot less separate now than they used to be, when Harry had her own job, her own friends, and wasn’t stuck at home all the time waiting for Louis to come back from work every day. Maybe they were a little too codependent at the moment. Maybe they needed to do some things to change that.

“You’re right,” Louis told her, though he wasn’t even sure she was still awake to hear it. “But you can still talk to me if you want. I’m gonna go check on Liam now, okay?”

Harry hummed something unintelligible in response and buried her face in the pillow. Louis shook his head as he stood up again and carefully closed the door behind himself as he made his way back out to the kitchen.

Nearly an hour later, Louis was still sat on his ass at the kitchen table, watching Liam—or well, just Liam’s knees, because his lower half was the only thing sticking out from underneath their sink as he worked to fix their garbage disposal.

“I really appreciate you coming over,” Louis told him, pitching his voice up a little so he could be sure that Liam would hear over the sound of his tools.

Liam grunted loudly from underneath the sink. “You’ve said that six times already. Harry, too.”

“Well, we’re that grateful,” Louis defended. It was a huge favor from their perspective, especially since having to shill out a few hundred dollars for a professional repair would have set them back another month or two on being able to make a down payment when they finally found a house. It would have been even worse if they’d had to ask Anne to cover it. Louis hated feeling like a burden on her, especially since she’d done so much for them already by letting them live rent free in the casita until they managed to save enough to move out.

Liam didn’t see it that way, though. To him, if it was within his ability to help someone, he’d do it, no questions asked. He’d been a huge part of Harry’s support system early on for just that reason, before, when she wasn’t _out_ -out but still needed someone who could make sure she got to all her doctor’s appointments and could pick up her hormones from the pharmacy when she and Louis didn’t have the time or even a car between them.

And speaking of which….

“Can I ask you something?”

Liam slid out into the open air with a clatter, his face red and dripping with sweat. “Shoot,” he replied through panting breaths as he sat up and leaned against the cupboard next to the sink, his expression expectant as he waited for Louis to continue.

“The first time you had sex with a girl,” Louis said slowly, “did she…?”

Liam made a face and reached down to grab a clean washcloth to wipe his face with. “When I was in high school? I mean, probably not. She, like, screamed the whole time, but I think that was just because she thought it would be sexy.”

“Was it?” Louis asked, deadpan.

Liam laughed. “No, not really. I couldn’t even keep a boner while I was fucking her because it kept scaring the shit out of me. She kind of sounded like a bird or something. It was super weird.”

Well, that made Louis feel a little better at least. He leaned over, grabbing a fresh beer from the six-pack he’d bought to ‘pay’ Liam with and handed it to him.

Liam took a few gulps and then stared suspiciously up at Louis. “Why do you want to know about the first girl I slept with?”

Louis hesitated before answering. “Harry and I have been having some, uh, issues,” he finally explained.

Liam, to his credit, didn’t look anything but sympathetic. “Ah. Because you, like, aren’t sure what to do, or…?”

Louis shrugged. “A bit of that,” he replied. Probably more than a bit, though it wasn’t like Harry had outright hated anything he’d done to her so far. “But honestly, Harry hasn’t had much luck with it on her own, either.”

Liam nodded sagely and took another swig of his beer. “Have you tried going down on her?” he asked.

Louis blinked a few times. “Um, no,” he said, feeling his face going hot in response to Liam’s blunt query. “I mean, we haven’t…we’ve only tried twice and just—with my hands, you know.”

“What about, um…anal?” Liam asked in a voice closer to a whisper, like he was afraid someone might hear even though he and Louis and Harry were the only ones in the guest house and there was no way that Harry would be conscious at any point in the next couple hours. “You said before she used to come just from you fucking her, right, so I mean…. It’s not like you can’t use the backdoor just because she has a pussy now, right?”

Louis stared down at Liam with an utterly unimpressed expression. “Thank you, Liam, but we’ve tried that already, believe it or not.” Louis shrugged, feeling the tinges of frustration starting to creep in as the conversation lengthened. He’d wanted an easy answer somehow, not the same solutions he’d already tried without any success. “She said it doesn’t really feel like anything now. And she seemed to like—” Louis made a hand motion indicating the other method they’d more recently tried. “But I don’t know, she just couldn’t get off from it, I guess.”

“And you haven’t tried anything, ah…internal?” Liam inquired.

Louis shook his head with a frown. “She hates dilating,” he confessed. “I don’t see the point in trying it unless that suddenly changes.” He didn’t tell Liam that he was a little scared, too: of hurting her, of failing to make her feel good _again_ , of really, well, and truly not knowing what the fuck he was doing.

Liam nodded contemplatively. “Get her a vibrator,” he said. And before Louis could protest, he added, “A real one, bro,” and then disappeared back underneath the sink.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Asking Liam for advice had unintentionally opened a floodgate that, frankly, Louis hadn’t been prepared for. He ended up consulting Harry on the way to lunch, hoping that she would have something useful to pass onto Liam, who had been pestering Louis for three days straight about whether he should break up with his current girlfriend or not.

“This whole thing is stupid,” Louis complained as he stepped out of the car and slammed the door closed behind him. “He doesn’t even like her. I don’t know why they started dating in the first place.”

“So why don’t you just tell him that?” Harry suggested.

Louis sighed as they walked up to the front entrance to the sushi restaurant they’d decided to stop at after spending the morning with the Winstons. “Because that’ll make Liam cry, and I really don’t want to deal with being the one responsible for that.”

Harry made a face. “Is this still because of the thing with Sophia?”

Louis opened the door for her to go through ahead of him; Harry got the second door on the inside, and Louis held up two fingers before the hostess on the other side could ask their party size. The girl smiled and motioned them back toward a smaller table in the rear right corner of the restaurant, next to one of the larger windows on the west side of the building where the sun was coming through.

“Your waitress will be with you in just a minute,” the girl said as she handed them their menus.

Louis waited until she was out of earshot before picking up the thread of their earlier conversation. “It’s obviously about Sophia,” he replied as he scanned the menu. “I just don’t understand why he’s still so hung up on her. It’s been months since they broke up.”

“Well, he liked her for years before they even dated, right?” Harry pointed out. She hadn’t even picked up her own menu, too focused on their discussion to split her attention between that and something else. “Like back in high school, even,” she added when it became clear that Louis was too engrossed in looking over the sushi options to come up with a response.

Louis sighed, not bothering to correct Harry by pointing out that Sophia had dated Liam all throughout high school and had dumped him half a dozen times in the process before they’d properly gotten together after graduation. None of that really changed anything for Liam, but it was a red flag that they’d all ignored for years until the relationship had finally blown up in Liam’s face. And now Louis was expected to do something to fix it. He could barely handle his own problems, let alone those of another fully-grown man.

A few seconds later, Louis sighed again and set the menu back down on the table between them. “You should pick,” he decided. “I don’t know what to get.”

“How many rolls should we order?” Harry asked as she finally opened her own menu to take a look.

Louis shrugged. “I don’t know. Three?” If they hadn’t been trying to save money, he probably would have gone for more, but Harry was eating less and less now that she was back on track with her hormone dosage, and honestly, Louis wasn’t that thrilled about eating sushi in the first place. The only reason he’d even agreed to come was because the restaurant apparently had a half-off happy hour for their whole menu in the early afternoon, and Louis was only so resilient against Harry’s begging and pleading when it came to getting exactly what she wanted.

Louis couldn’t deny that it was nice to be out of the house again for once, and despite the fact that he wasn’t looking forward to the food all that much, the table was cozy, the sun was warm, and the drinks on the back of the menu had all been listed at astonishingly low prices.

“Should I tell him to dump her, then?” Louis asked.

Harry shrugged. “I think you should tell him to get a therapist,” she replied.

Louis opened his mouth to argue why that would never work in a million years only to be interrupted by their waitress, who appeared at the side of their table from seemingly nowhere and bounced on her heels the whole time she stood there jotting down Harry’s order.

“Anything for you?” the waitress asked as she turned toward Louis.

“Actually, we’re gonna share, but can I get the plum wine cocktail? She’ll have the peach.”

“Sure,” the waitress replied chipperly. “Can I just see your IDs real quick?”

Louis was quick to pull his wallet out of his front pocket to show her; Harry took a little while longer, as she hadn’t been expecting to order alcohol in the first place, not to mention the fact that her purse was a perpetually unorganized mess. She was a bit pink in the cheeks when the waitress walked away with their orders, and she gave Louis a sharp look as she set her purse back down on the floor again between her feet.

“Oh, I’ll have the peach, will I?” Harry said, lifting her eyebrows in clear skepticism.

Louis just shrugged. “I wanted to try them both,” he admitted.

“Are you going to be able to drive home?” Harry asked.

Louis waved his hand flippantly. “They’re wine cocktails,” he argued. “The buzz’ll probably wear off before we’re even finished eating. If they even put more than a teaspoon of alcohol in it to start with.”

Harry still didn’t look happy about it, but Louis knew his limits, and he was nowhere near the lightweight that Harry had become after transitioning. He’d be shocked if the drink even had an effect, considering he was going to be having it with a meal. Louis didn’t drink to feel good anymore, though, and he certainly didn’t drink to be drunk. He just liked the taste now that he’d acquired it in his younger years.

Their drinks arrived first, the sushi rolls just a few minutes after. Louis tried a bite of each before deciding to stick with the one that had melted cheese on top, which earned him an eye-roll from Harry even though he knew she must have ordered it specifically because of him.

Louis was engrossed in eating his portion of the meal, his cocktail already mostly gone, when Harry posed the question out of nowhere.

“Are you still attracted to me?”

Louis looked up at Harry at the start of the question and stared at her blankly as she finished. There was sushi in her mouth.

“Haven’t we been over this already?” he replied without answering.

Harry’s face slipped predictably into an overexaggerated pout. “It’s different now,” she protested. “Because before I at least had—you know.”

The dining room was practically empty, so Louis wasn’t sure why she was so concerned about the possibility of being overheard. “I wasn’t into you because of your cock, Harry,” he replied bluntly.

“Yeah, but you still liked it.” Her tone was almost accusatory now.

“So what?” Louis shot back. “You _didn’t_ like it. That’s the only opinion that matters.” He could see tears starting to well up in her eyes now, and it was impossible to tell whether it was because he’d said something wrong or right. Louis sighed. “Look, the whole…I’m getting used to it still. I’m not going to lie to you about that. But I’ve never looked at you and thought there was something wrong with you. Ever.”

Harry nodded dully and shoved another piece of sushi into her mouth whole. “I just feel like it’d be better if we were at least fucking again. Like actually fucking. For real.”

“Isn’t it a little soon for that?” Louis said delicately.

Harry’s expression remained stony. “It’s been more than two months now,” she pointed out. “The doctor already said I’m fine, Louis.”

“Well, you complain about dilating all the time,” Louis countered. “I just don’t want to hurt you.” He was probably being overly defensive now, but he really did have her best interests at heart. Especially since they’d always been pretty rough with each other in bed before she’d had her surgery.

Harry rolled her eyes as if Louis’s concerns were the stupidest things she’d ever heard. “You wouldn’t like shoving a dildo in your ass when you’re not turned on, would you? That’s why I don’t like dilating. Christ. I know my body better than you do, okay?”

“I know that,” Louis replied through gritted teeth. “That’s part of what scares me.”

Finally, Harry’s callous expression morphed into something resembling sympathy. “You know I’m not upset about the other times, right? I know it’s just gonna take some time.”

“’Everything, everything will be all right, all right’,” Louis replied back in a sing-song voice.

Harry shook her head fondly. If they had a song together as a couple, so to speak, it was The Middle. It had been the song Harry had been playing with her garage band at the house party where they’d first met back in college. She’d been singing it when Louis had seen her for the very first time.

“Exactly,” she said with a soft smile. “I want to try again this week.” She popped a piece of sushi into her mouth, and then reached across the table with her chopsticks to swipe one of Louis’s, since she’d finished all of hers.

Louis just pushed the whole tray at her before taking another sip of his cocktail. It was every bit as watered down as he’d expected it to be, but still tasty. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

Harry sniffed pointedly. “Liam told me you guys talked.”

“Of course he did.” Louis hadn’t really expected anything else, but still. Liam really needed to learn how to keep his mouth shut at some point. “And?”

Harry winced a little as she replied. “I may have ordered a Hitachi like…five minutes after he left?”

Louis let his head sink down into his hands with a groan. “Harry,” he whined, “those are _expensive_.”

“I had a gift card!” Harry protested. “It was only like a hundred dollars after tax!”

Louis sighed, but he couldn’t really begrudge the expense if it would help. And he couldn’t even imagine how awful it would be to not be able to have an orgasm in over two months. He was pretty sure he would have keeled over and died already if he’d been in her position. “It’ll be here before this weekend?” he asked, wanting to make sure.

Harry nodded eagerly. “On Friday. And I thought you could tie me up, too.”

Of course, that was the exact moment when their waitress decided to re-emerge from the back of the restaurant to come check on them again. Her scandalized expression as she refilled Harry’s water before scurrying away again had both Louis and Harry in tears.

After they finished their lunch and started to head out, taking the path through the small straight to the only parking space they’d been able to find nearly on the opposite side of the complex from the restaurant, Harry suddenly sprung her next unexpected request on Louis.

“Can we go inside and look around before we go home?” she asked, tugging at his hand as she looked over meaningfully at a tiny little lingerie boutique tucked between two much larger womenswear stores.

“Just to look?” Louis replied dryly as he stopped in the middle of the large walkway. He didn’t believe her excuse for a second. If she wanted to go into a specific store, it was because she intended to buy something.

“Well, they might have a sale or something,” Harry replied, her expression sheepish even as she began to step toward the boutique, pulling Louis along with her despite the fact that he had yet to agree.

Louis sighed as he followed her. “We really don’t have the money for this,” he insisted.

“It doesn’t hurt just to have a look,” she argued.

“Yes, it does,” Louis shot back.

Harry didn’t bother coming up with a reply for that. Their hands were still connected as they walked into the store, and for a second, Louis was struck by the fact that no one else batted an eyelash as they passed by. Sometimes he forgot that they could do this sort of thing now and get away with it, whereas when they’d bought Harry lingerie together before she’d been out, it had been a completely different story.

Louis did his best to keep from hovering while Harry browsed the racks of bras and panties. He knew why she wanted to look around, and he couldn’t exactly begrudge her that—everything she owned previously had been sized to accommodate for her dick, and as a result, pretty much nothing that still fit her qualified as ‘sexy’. She had enough pairs of practical underwear to wear around the casita and under her clothes, but anything not made of cotton was something she would probably have to end up getting rid of.

“If you want to try something on, you can,” Louis finally told her after she picked up her fiftieth pair of panties before setting them back down again with a quiet sigh.

“If I end up trying it on, I’ll want to buy it,” she admitted with a pointed look.

Louis pursed his lips, already knowing that giving in was a terrible decision, but one he was going to make anyway. “You can buy one set,” he decided. “For when the you-know-what shows up.”

Harry’s face brightened exponentially, and she turned back around to hunt down one of the lacy bra and panty sets she’d discarded a good fifteen minutes ago. The one she settled on at long last was a soft shade of peach. “Sorry,” she said a bit cheekily as she moved past Louis to get to the dressing rooms. “Guess you’ll have to wait until Friday to see it.”

“You’re not even gonna take a photo?” Louis said, feigning a wounded expression as he turned to follow her. He only made it as far as the last rack at the back of the store before the dressing room attendant gave him a threatening look that had Louis throwing up his hands in surrender as he backed away.

Harry just laughed at him and disappeared behind the divider to try on her potential purchases. She emerged a few minutes later with both pieces folded carefully and clutched in one hand, looking just a tad redder than she had when she’d gone in.

“Good?” Louis asked once she was close enough that he felt like he could brave the dressing room attendant’s wrath by approaching her.

She nodded and lifted up the panties to show him something he hadn’t noticed before when she’d picked them out: they were crotchless.

“Oh,” Louis said dumbly.

Harry considered his expression with narrowed eyes. “Good ‘oh’ or bad ‘oh’?” she asked.

“Good ‘oh’,” Louis replied in a confident tone. “Very good ‘oh’.”

Harry’s face broke out into a sunny smile, but it quickly shifted into a more startled expression when a guy Louis had never seen before in his life suddenly walked up behind her and tapped her shoulder. “Will?” she blurted out as she turned to face him, leaving Louis even more confused than he had been before.

The guy’s mouth turned upwards in a smile, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Harry, right?” he replied slowly. “I wasn’t really sure that was you.”

Harry nodded energetically and turned slightly to include Louis in the conversation that had unexpectedly sprung up. “Lou, this is Will. We were in a band together back in high school.”

Louis outstretched a hand toward the other man to shake, though there was something about the whole encounter that had him still on edge. “Nice to meet you,” he said politely. His first instinct was to introduce himself as Harry’s boyfriend, but then he immediately second-guessed it. If Will and Harry had known each other in high school, then that meant Will had known her before she was out. Though to be fair, he realized, the cat was already out of the bag. Harry might not have been wearing a dress, but the shape under her baggy sweater and skinny jeans was undeniably feminine. Will would have had to be a complete idiot not to realize.

Will _was_ a complete idiot, as it turned out. “Guess you’re still pretty popular with the ladies, then,” he said with a smirk as he nodded toward the bra and panties in Harry’s hand. “But you know Valentine’s Day was a few weeks ago, right?”

Louis froze, not wanting to make the wrong move and accidentally exacerbate the already terrible situation they’d somehow managed to stumble into.

Harry was likewise silent for a long moment, but when she finally spoke, it was in a cool and detached tone that Louis knew to mean she was barely keeping a lid on her emotions. “I do know, actually,” she said. “And it’s not for another girl; it’s for me.”

With that, she spun around on one heel and grabbed for Louis’s hand, marching them over to the counter to pay without giving Will a chance to respond. They booked it out of the store as soon as they finished up at the register, half walking-half jogging out into the parking lot to their car.

It was almost dark outside when they reached it, the combination of their late lunch plus the time they’d spent in the boutique meaning that the sun had almost fully set by the time they’d left the mall. Harry had managed to hold herself together on the way out, but when Louis started to fumble in his pocket for the keys, she sagged into him, her body starting to shake with what he knew would quickly turn into uncontrollable sobs.

“Hey, hey,” Louis said soothingly, deciding to give up on finding his car keys for the moment so that he could focus on the more important task of making sure Harry didn’t have a breakdown in the parking lot instead. “What’s the matter, hmm?”

Harry buried her face into Louis’s chest and shook her head. “Do I really not look any different?” she whispered. “I didn’t think—I thought—he recognized me from _high school_.”

“He was either being an asshole on purpose or he was just a huge dumbass,” Louis told her, though he wasn’t sure exactly how reassuring that argument was.

He pushed her up against the car, shielding her from the rest of the world with his body as he slid his hand down her arm and under her sweater, impulsively grabbing a handful of her boobs and squeezing hard enough that she let out a quiet squeak against his neck.

“You didn’t have these in high school, did you?” Louis said, not really sure where the words had come from but hoping they were an effective distraction anyway. He quickly moved his hand down again, this time skimming his fingers over the front of her jeans to cup her crotch, pressing his fingers up against the seam of her pants with enough pressure that Harry gasped. “And you definitely didn’t have this.”

Harry arched into the touch, pushing up onto her tip-toes in an effort to get closer, and for a moment, Louis was tempted to go even further with her although they were still standing in the middle of the mall parking lot, where anyone could see, and Louis still didn’t know what the hell they were doing when it came to this stuff.

But then a drop of rain splashed against the bridge of Louis’s nose. And then another. And another. “Fuck,” he said as he dropped his hand, pretending not to notice the look of disappointment on Harry’s face as he shoved it back into his pocket to grab the keys. “Come on, let’s head home before traffic gets any worse.”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry had told Louis that he didn’t need to come with her to band practice, but Louis had been itching to do something other than work or sit at home alone with Harry, with only the odd trip out to dinner that they could ill-afford (but that Louis couldn’t find it in his heart to deny her) to break up the monotony. At this point, any change of pace was a welcome one.

In addition to the pure practicality of Louis’s decision, he knew that Harry’s music was one of the most important things in her life, and he wanted to be as supportive of that as he possibly could. As much as she loved her job at the bakery—which Louis was sure she was looking forward to getting back to in just a couple weeks—Harry’s one true love was definitely the band. If everything went well with the home-purchasing process, Louis was planning on buying her some studio time as a gift once they had a bit more cash in their pockets.

For the time being, though, practice with CHASM had been on hold for a few months while Harry was still recovering. But the band was still planning to play at a festival late in the summer and so had to resume their weekly meetings as soon as Harry was feeling up to it to make sure the five of them were ready to put on an actual performance after taking an extended break.

It was harder to get a group of five adults together for a couple hours each week than it should have been: Adam had two kids and was a stay-at-home dad, Mitch and Sarah both worked night-shifts, and Clare was prone to traveling out of the country to visit her family every couple of months. Harry, who only worked part-time anyway and had a fair bit of free time most weekends, was just rather bad at scheduling things in general, and thus, Louis had found himself a lot more involved in managing the affairs of the band as a whole than he’d expected.

They sounded amazing, though, and Harry clearly loved performing, so it wasn’t like Louis begrudged the background work he found himself doing on his own time, even if it was unpaid and (mostly) uncredited. It _had_ taken him a while to get accustomed to hanging around Harry’s friends, however—especially Mitch, whose dry humor and fairly taciturn temperament took some getting used to, but after more than a year of being directly involved in the band, Louis could say with some degree of confidence that they were friends.

So much so, in fact, that even Louis got a hug from him as he and Harry walked into Adam’s living room, which was only slightly less cluttered with various toys than Louis remembered there being the last time they’d come over.

Everyone was soaked when they arrived at the house from the rain that had persisted over the last two days with no end in sight. Louis had to physically tug Harry out of Mitch’s arms when it was her turn to hug him just so he could get her out of her sopping wet jacket before she froze to death inside the Prendergasts’ foyer.

“Are we still doing drinks outside?” Louis asked Emi skeptically. The rain was supposed to stop later in the evening, but with how heavy it had just been coming down when they made the drive over, he had his doubts.

Emi looked over at her husband only for Adam to give a noncommittal shrug. “Probably?” she replied. “We have the canopy set up over most of the backyard to keep all the furniture dry, so it should be fine either way.”

The plan for the evening was to spend the first two hours practicing the setlist for the upcoming festival in the garage, followed by drinks out back around the fire pit. Louis couldn’t deny that he was really only excited for that last bit, but he did his best to appear outwardly engaged in everything that was happening around him as he sat back and watched everyone get their instruments together. His eyes lingered maybe a bit too long on Mitch’s fingers as he helped Harry adjust the strap on her guitar so it sat a little higher on her hips than Mitch liked to wear his, but nobody seemed to notice.

There had been a point once where Louis’s jealousy over Harry’s easy intimacy with her friends had gotten the best of him, but they were far beyond that now. He was watching Harry for an entirely different reason, and that was simply because he just wanted to. But there was still the possibility that his attention might be misconstrued, and Louis didn’t want to cause any problems between her and Mitch.

Harry caught sight of Louis looking a minute or two later and gave him a thumbs up from across the garage. Louis replied with a thumbs up of his own and settled more comfortably into the couch to watch them perform. He knew all the songs Harry and Mitch had written together by heart now, but it was still fun to watch Harry stand in front of a mic and sing her heart out, especially since she’d been so worried when she was first learning to change her voice that she’d never be able to do it while performing. Now it was like second nature to her.

Overall, the band was a bit rusty after having not practiced in a few months, but it didn’t take long for them to get back into the swing of things. Harry was flushed and beaming as she followed Louis back into the house once their instruments were all packed up again. Emi had already started to whip up drinks for everyone in the kitchen, and Adam’s kids had followed her downstairs to see what all the commotion was about.

Harry deviated from the rest of the group to go hug the two small children, and Louis watched as she engaged in a conversation with both of them for a moment—crouching down so she was at their eye level—before Emi suddenly called out to her from the kitchen.

“Don’t rile them up, Harry; they need to go to bed soon!”

Both kids groaned out loud and clung tighter to Harry, who seemed just as reluctant to let them go.

“We can put them down,” Sarah volunteered, already moving over to join Harry in the living room. “You guys go ahead and relax.”

“You’re sure?” Emi asked skeptically.

“Yeah, of course,” Harry cut in.

Louis moved a little closer to her. “You want help?” he asked in a low tone.

Harry shook her head. “We’ll be fine. Besides, you might want to start drinking now if you want to be sober enough to drive home later.” She rolled her eyes, apparently still not over the argument they’d had in the car on the way home from the mall where she’d complained that Louis never let her drive anymore—to which Louis had countered that the last time she had, she’d totaled her car, so in his opinion, he was doing them both a favor by taking on that responsibility.

Louis made a face in response to her jab, but he nodded and walked out into the backyard a few seconds later to join the rest of the band. He sipped diligently at the only mojito he was permitting himself to drink that evening and made conversation with Adam about home ownership (still prospective, in Louis’s case) while Mitch and Clare talked shop—or, well, argued about the upcoming festival—just a few feet away.

It wasn’t until Louis had finished his drink and was about to go inside to make another one without any alcohol in it at all that he realized neither Harry, Sarah, nor Emi had come back outside to join them.

“How long does it take to put your kids down for bed?” Louis wondered.

Adam frowned. “They’re usually pretty good about it. Want me to go check on them?”

Louis shook his head. “Nah, I’ll go do it.”

He found all three women in the master bedroom, after first checking each of the kids’ rooms to find that both were already sound asleep in their beds. Louis entered the bedroom cautiously, hearing giggling emanating from the bathroom, where he could see a light shining through a crack in the door. When he opened it, the last thing he expected to find was Harry sitting on the counter, her legs spread wide and bent at the knee with her skirt hiked up around her waist.

Louis automatically averted his eyes even though he’d seen Harry naked more times than he could count since she got home from the hospital. “What are you doing?” he asked tonelessly as she jumped down and pulled her panties back up her legs.

Both Emi and Sarah burst into uproarious laughter as Harry turned beet-red. It was Sarah who finally got the answer out first. “We were comparing—you know,” she said, still a bit breathless from laughing. “Her surgeon did a hell of a job.”

“It’s more photogenic than mine was even before I had kids,” Emi quipped.

Harry rolled her eyes. “I promised I would let them see it after,” she told Louis.

Louis just blinked at all of them a few times, not sure exactly how to respond to any of that. “Right,” he finally replied. “So—drinks?”

Somehow Louis lost track of Harry after helping Emi finish up a few more cocktails in the kitchen before going back outside. It took him a minute to find her once they went out to the firepit, but then he realized she was only so difficult to find because she was clinging to Adam’s back for some reason, her legs wound around his waist and a half-full glass in her hand as she carefully sipped it while hanging off of his neck.

Louis just shook his head and moved closer to the fire to warm up. If Adam was content to endure her drunken antics, he wasn’t about to get in the way of her having a little fun.

Sarah ended up standing off to the side while the rest of the band entertained a very less-than-sober Harry, which she just watched from a distance with a mildly amused expression. Louis edged closer to her, feeling a bit bad that she was on her own as well as not really being in the mood to have Harry clambering all over him like a jungle gym the way she seemed to be doing with the others.

Sarah looked over at Louis as he moved over to stand next to her at the edge of the firepit. The rain had mostly subsided, as promised, and now there was only the sound of the excess rainwater trickling off of the edges of the canopy to accompany the crackling of the fire and Harry’s gleeful shrieking from the other side of the patio.

Sarah nodded at Louis in greeting; Louis nodded back and sucked in a deep breath, steeling himself to ask the question that had been niggling at the back of his brain since he’d walked in on the scene involving Harry, Sarah, and Emi upstairs.

“This is such a weird question, and I can’t believe I’m even asking this, but you guys weren’t just saying that stuff to make Harry feel better, right?” Louis wasn’t sure why he was suddenly so anxious about the appearance of Harry’s new vagina all of a sudden, but if she was going to be flashing it around to everyone in their social circle, he supposed he might as well get a second opinion on it.

Sarah arched a single eyebrow. “I assume Google is a helpful point of comparison,” she said, “if you’re unfamiliar with what a pussy is supposed to look like.”

“I mean, I’ve seen pictures,” Louis replied, his face warming even more than could be accounted for from the heat of the fire. “But they all look really different, so….”

Sarah shrugged. “Exactly,” she replied. “She’s got all the necessary bits and bobs, and that’s all that really matters, but if you want my honest impression, hers is really pretty, even with the scars. Porn star material for sure.”

Louis snorted into his glass as he lifted it up to take another drink. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to let her know she has a potential future in that if she decides baking and music aren’t doing it for her anymore.”

Sarah grinned, her teeth flashing in the glint of the firelight. “We can disband the band and start a production company instead,” she joked. “We’d all probably make a hell of a lot more money, honestly.”

“You’re probably not wrong about that.”

Louis finished his drink a few minutes later, and after noticing that Sarah’s glass was empty too, he volunteered to go inside and get her another. When he made it back outside again, the scene that greeted him was pure chaos. Evidently, in his absence, Harry had managed to fall into the pool and had to be fished out by Adam and Mitch, who were both currently keeping her upright as Emi and Clare attempted to dry her off with two different beach towels from the cupboard next to the outdoor grill.

“Is she okay?” Louis asked as he sprinted over to check on her.

Harry was shivering wildly as she stood there and allowed her friends to rub her down like a cat after a particularly traumatic bath, but she nodded and gave Louis a thumbs up.

Emi sighed and tossed her towel aside. “This is hopeless,” she pronounced. “You’re gonna have to change, come on.”

Louis helped Harry inside, following Emi back upstairs and into the master bedroom, where she immediately went rummaging through her bureau for some extra clothes for Harry to wear.

“I can throw those in the laundry for a quick wash,” Emi volunteered as she tossed a pair of underwear at Harry before throwing a shirt and some pajama pants over her shoulder as well. “Unless you guys want to go home early? I don’t mind if you bring that stuff back the next time you come over instead.”

Louis looked over at Harry to gauge her mood before making a decision, though if it was entirely up to him, he would have just opted to go home. Harry wasn’t paying either of them any mind though; she’d already stripped out of her wet clothing and was pulling on the fresh set as though Emi wasn’t still standing there. Though Louis supposed it didn’t really matter after what had happened between them earlier. The pussy was already out of the bag, as it were.

“Do you want to stay?” Louis asked more pointedly, since it was clear that Harry was too tipsy to grasp any sort of subtlety at this point.

Harry paused with the t-shirt pulled halfway over her head, her tits still fully out, before finally nodding with a solemn expression.

“I guess we’ll wait for the laundry,” Louis said as he turned back to face Emi, only just managing to suppress the sigh of resignation he could feel building in his chest. “Do you mind moving everyone inside? I don’t know if I trust her not to fall in again.”

Harry let out a sharp “hey!” that went ignored by both Emi and Louis, who only paid attention to her again after Emi had collected Harry’s discarded clothing and was ready to help shepherd her back downstairs.

The gathering was much more lowkey once they migrated into the living room. The whole point of being outside in the first place was so they could be as loud as they liked without having to worry about accidentally waking up Silver and Spike, but now that they were all gathered together on the couch, things had cooled down a bit.

Harry ended up sprawled across all three men’s laps, Louis’s hands in her hair and Mitch’s around her ankles, while Adam sat awkwardly in the middle with no clue where to put his hands. They ended up playing a bit of music on low volume in the background as they chatted; Harry sang along under her breath the whole time, her eyes closed as she lay there with her face mashed against Louis’s thigh.

The group disbanded just after ten, and while Louis wasn’t sure exactly just how many drinks Harry had had, it was enough that she could barely walk in a straight line back to the car, and he ended up having to help her get buckled in before they set off for home.

“Was gonna show my new song,” Harry said dully a few minutes after they’d left, her forehead pressed up against the window as she stared at the passing scenery. “Too scared, though.”

“Scared of what?” Louis asked gently. “You already know your music is good. Every song you guys play is one that you wrote.”

“Didn’t have Mitch to help me,” she slurred. “It’s not good.”

“I’m sure it is,” Louis reassured her. “How about you show me tomorrow, okay? I promise to give you my honest opinion about it.”

When Harry didn’t answer, Louis assumed she must have fallen asleep, the natural consequence of the copious amount of alcohol she’d consumed over the course of the last couple hours. She remained just as quiet the whole drive back to the house, but she was wide awake when Louis rounded the car to open her door once they finally arrived. She stuck out her arms, clearly expecting to be picked up, and Louis indulged her with a tired sigh.

“Need my help dilating again?” Louis asked once they were inside.

“Mm,” was all Harry said when he deposited her onto the bed.

Louis turned around and walked into the bathroom to get everything she’d need so they could get the process over with quickly. He had a feeling that if he didn’t let her sleep soon, she’d be cranky as all hell in the morning.

When Louis came back into their bedroom with the necessary supplies in hand, Harry had already thrown her clothes across the room and was lying on top of the sheets completely naked, her legs spread wide. Louis swallowed hard, feeling unexpectedly affected by the sight as he drew closer, but he did his best to maintain an aura of clinical detachment when he sat down on the edge of the bed next to her, a tube of lube and the smaller of her two dilators at the ready.

But detachment wasn’t what Harry wanted, apparently. She surged up to meet his mouth, catching Louis by surprise and nearly sending him tumbling off the side of the bed in her eagerness. She was everywhere, and Louis was so momentarily overwhelmed that he forgot how to act, forgot everything except the warmth of her body around him—the heat of her cunt grinding down against his crotch as she writhed in his lap, hotter than any other part of her.

“Hey,” Louis gasped out once he regained enough sense to pull away, his hands cupping Harry’s cheeks now that he’d dropped all her dilating supplies onto the bed next to them. “What’s going on? Are you feeling okay?”

Harry reared back with a scrunched-up frown, her chest heaving as she breathed in and out raggedly, like she’d forgotten how all of a sudden. “I’m fine,” she replied flatly as she peeled one of Louis’s hands away from her face before placing it directly over her right breast. “Want you to fuck me.”

“You’re drunk,” Louis pointed out, even though, honestly, that was probably the lowest on his list of reasons why having sex with Harry right then was an awful idea.

Harry ignored him, instead trying to move his hand down even further to cup her pussy as she rocked against him, clearly trying to get Louis hard with every sinuous roll of her hips over his lap. The worst part was that it was working.

Louis practically threw her back onto the bed, only realizing that he’d used just a bit too much force when she went tumbling head over heels, her head smacking into the wall with a dull thud. Louis jumped up again to grab her, picking her up just as the pain finally registered and she started to cry.

“Fuck, I’m so sorry,” he said in a hushed voice. “Shit.”

Harry was still naked, her dilation supplies still lying discarded on the bed, and despite the fact that Louis had been cradling her for the past minute, she had yet to stop crying. Louis was confident there wasn’t anything actually wrong with her, because she’d barely reacted to the gentle palpations of his fingers over her scalp, but she was clearly too drunk and overemotional for her own good. Louis needed help.

Anne answered the back door in her bathrobe, her eyes still a bit puffy from sleep. She couldn’t have gotten much before Louis called to wake her up, but she hadn’t complained once he explained the situation.

Harry had been nearly impossible to dress, and since she still had to dilate, Louis had settled for pulling a t-shirt that went nearly to her knees over her head before tucking a pair of panties into his pocket to get her into later.

Anne somehow managed to calm Harry down immediately with just her presence, which was the outcome Louis had been hoping for. He sagged in relief against the kitchen counter, watching as Anne pushed Harry into a chair before quickly whipping her up a cup of chamomile tea.

“Thanks for this,” Louis said quietly from outside the door to Anne’s bedroom, after he’d managed to help Harry dilate and shower before tucking her in under the covers.

Anne nodded serenely. “I assume Harry hitting her head was an accident,” she said, and Louis felt his stomach lurch even though there was no trace of accusation in her tone.

Louis nodded and swallowed hard. “I was…it won’t happen again,” he promised.

Anne smiled softly and drew him in for a hug. “I’ll make us all pancakes in the morning,” she told him, “if you’d like to join us.”

Louis answered her smile with one of her own, relieved by her easy acceptance and trust. He’d been prepared to tell her the whole story in detail if she’d asked, but since she hadn’t, Louis decided to spare Harry the unnecessary embarrassment. Provided she even remembered what had happened when she woke up. “That would be great,” he replied. “Can I go in and say goodnight before I head back to the casita?”

Anne nodded.

Harry was already asleep when Louis slipped into the darkened bedroom, her hands clutching Anne’s comforter tight against her face with only her closed eyes and her forehead peeking out. Louis leaned down to kiss her goodnight anyway, smoothing a hand through her curls as he reassured himself that this would all be better in the morning.


	16. Chapter 16

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostes

Their pancake breakfast the next morning courtesy of Anne was a bit…awkward, to say the least. It didn’t help that Harry had woken up much earlier than she would have liked due to the fact that Louis had to go to work afterward, putting her in an even fouler mood thanks to the lack of sleep in addition to her pounding headache. Louis wasn’t sure if the latter was due to her hangover or the head trauma that she’d suffered the previous night. Maybe both, he realized with an empathetic wince.

Harry held out her hands like a kid waiting for candy after they’d eaten, patiently standing by as Anne measured out a couple pills to help with her headache.

“Thanks for breakfast,” Louis said for the third time as he rinsed his plate for far longer than he needed to, just to have something to busy his hands with while he waited for Harry to take her aspirin so they could head back over to the casita.

“It’s no trouble, dear,” Anne said kindly, though the majority of her focus remained on her daughter, who she watched like a hawk as Harry winced through both pills before chasing them with even more orange juice. “You’re sure you’re feeling okay?” Anne asked afterward. “I can call off work if you want someone to stay home with you.”

“I’m fine, Mom,” Harry grumbled as she trudged over to the back door. “I just need to go back to bed for a few more hours.”

“Okay,” Anne replied with a dubious expression. “If you’re sure.”

“I can check on her during lunch today,” Louis volunteered as he finally set down his plate. “Thanks again. It was really good.”

Anne just nodded this time, her face taut as she watched them go out into the backyard. Louis kept an arm wrapped around Harry’s waist, afraid for some reason of letting her go. He was undeniably shaken after what had happened last night, and he wanted to talk to Harry about it, but it was clear that now wasn’t the right time. He was hoping she’d be in a better mood come lunchtime, and that they could have a calm, adult discussion about their feelings, but part of Louis was terrified that she didn’t even remember anything and that bringing it up would only make things that much worse.

Things did get worse as soon as they walked through the door to the casita—just not in a way that Louis could have anticipated. Somehow, the kittens had managed to get into the pantry in their absence and had knocked nearly everything off the bottom shelves. The biggest part of the mess though were the two rolls of paper towels that now lay in shredded bits of confetti all over the kitchen floor.

Harry took one long look at the kittens’ handiwork and—predictably—started to cry.

Louis sighed and put his hands on Harry’s shoulders, carefully steering her into the bedroom while she sobbed. “Just get some sleep,” he told her as he helped her into bed. “I’ll take care of the mess.”

“You have work,” she pointed out in a thick voice, even as she was already climbing underneath the covers.

“It’s fine,” Louis reassured her. In the back of his mind, he knew he didn’t have the time to both clean up and make his usual commute to the office, but clearly, Harry had reached her limit. Louis would just have to deal with it.

Cleaning up after the kittens ended up being a lot easier said than done. They’d broken a jar of strawberry jam at the back of the pantry that neither Harry nor Louis had noticed when they first walked in, and Louis ended up corralling both cats and checking all eight paws in a panic, worried that Tibert and Harlow might have stepped in the shards of broken glass.

Louis was thirty minutes to work at the end of it all, after securing the cats in their bedroom with Harry (who was already asleep) and making sure that the kitchen and pantry floor were spotless. The only saving grace was that traffic wasn’t as horrible as Louis had been anticipating, and even though he was late, not a single one of coworkers or his supervisor hassled him about it. The benefits of actually being reliable ninety-nine percent of the rest of the time, he supposed.

Louis still felt a bit guilty though when he took his lunch break fifteen minutes earlier than he usually did—even though he was no more behind on his actual workload for either of the changes in his schedule.

Louis just wanted to make sure that Harry was really okay, despite the fact that he was confident she would have said something if she wasn’t. He hurried home anyway, driving a little faster than he needed to but thankfully not drawing the ire of the cop he passed on the side of the freeway waiting for someone to pull over. He felt his phone buzzing in his pocket somewhere around the halfway mark of his commute but couldn’t be bothered to pull it out and look even when he was idling at a stoplight, too intent on getting home as quickly as possible.

It wasn’t until he actually pulled up to the house that he checked his phone and realized why it had gone off in the first place.

Louis was honestly surprised to see that the Hitachi wand Harry ordered had arrived exactly on schedule, because he’d forgotten it was coming in all the chaos that had ensued over the past couple days. Anne had been the one to find it first, but thankfully she wasn’t the type to pry, because even with how chill she was about Harry and Louis living together and sleeping in the same bed, he was pretty sure she wouldn’t recover from knowing even the smallest details about their sex life.

Not that they had much of one anymore.

But Louis was determined to change that. He pocketed his phone and locked the car before heading over to the casita, finding himself even more surprised when the package Anne had texted him and Harry about was still sitting outside the gate, exactly where she’d found it.

Louis frowned as he bent down to pick it up. It was probably nothing, but he felt his anxiety ratchet up just a little over the fact that Harry hadn’t come out to collect it first.

He marched inside with the box tucked under one arm and took it straight into their bedroom, where he found Harry laid out in bed with a book propped up against her breasts—which were covered only in a sports bra, meaning she must have finally decided to try to get back into her usual yoga routine.

Harry’s eyes widened as she caught sight of the package, and she sat up quickly. “Is that it?” she asked.

Louis nodded. “Your mom found it,” he informed her, since her phone was sitting on the nightstand, probably on silent, and she must not have seen the text. “She didn’t ask what it was, though.”

“Thank god,” Harry mumbled. “Can I see?” She made grabby hands towards the package until Louis passed it to her.

“You wanna try today, or do you need some time to work up to it?” Louis asked. Harry’s libido was…unpredictable, to say the least.

Harry was already nodding eagerly before Louis even finished the question. “Today,” she replied, before quickly adding a demure, “please?”

So Harry wanted to play like that, Louis realized. She had mentioned wanting to be tied up, but sometimes she just liked not being able to get away when Louis gave her multiple orgasms. Or in this case, _tried_ to give her at least one. But the ‘please’, the submissiveness in her tone…that meant Louis was in charge.

Louis felt his chest tighten up a little at the thought of being responsible for Harry getting off during a scene when he couldn’t even figure out how to make her come outside of one. And there was the whole vagina thing that he was still getting used to. Louis didn’t want to disappoint her, though.

Louis considered all the possibilities and nodded again. “I should probably get back to work then so I can come home a little earlier,” he told her. “But I wanted to talk first.”

Harry’s hands paused in what they were doing, the package only half-open in her lap when she looked up to meet Louis’s eyes. “Okay,” she said quietly.

Louis could feel his palms sweating, but he didn’t want to give away his nerves by wiping them against his trousers. “Do you remember everything that happened last night? You were pretty drunk, so….”

Harry pursed her lips as she nodded. “Yeah,” she said in a small voice, “I remember.”

Louis couldn’t tell whether he was relieved to hear that or disappointed. “Right. Well—you know I didn’t mean for you to get hurt, right? And I’m not upset about what happened either, I just didn’t want…. You were drunk, so it didn’t feel like a good idea.”

“We’ve had sex when I was drunk before,” Harry pointed out without acknowledging the rest of what Louis had said.

“I know,” Louis replied calmly, “but those were different circumstances. Right?”

Harry was silent for a moment before responding. “Right.”

“And I am sorry that you got hurt. It was an accident.”

“I know,” Harry replied. “I’m not mad about it.”

Louis felt his shoulders sag a little in relief. “Okay, good. Don’t use that until I get home, okay? I want us to do it properly.”

Harry nodded eagerly even as she resumed tearing open the outer packaging to get to the box within. Louis watched her for a moment longer before walking up to the bed to kiss her goodbye, and then he was out the door again, heading to work on an empty stomach, his brain abuzz with anticipation.

Louis got a lot less work done during the second half of the day, but it was enough that he didn’t feel the least bit guilty about clocking out nearly an hour early before racing back home again. When he got there, Harry was still in bed—or more likely, had gotten back in—but she threw back the sheets in excitement as soon as Louis burst through the bedroom door.

“Get naked,” Louis instructed a bit breathlessly, already moving to pull the restraints out from underneath the bed and fastening them while Harry did as he’d asked.

Inside the same box where they kept the ankle and wrist cuffs were an assortment of various toys, a lot of which were penetrative, and Louis contemplated them for a moment, wondering if it would be too much to subject her to multiple new types of stimulation all at once. He decided against it in the end. They’d start off small, work their way up to more complicated arrangements in time.

Harry’s clothes had vanished into a distant corner when Louis turned around again. He took his time securing the cuffs around her wrists and ankles before attaching them to the bed posts, adjusting them so they were taut enough that she wouldn’t be able to move.

Harry’s legs were spread wide, and Louis moved between them, gently rubbing up and down her inner thighs until she was shivering with anticipation. “Ready?” he asked her in a low tone. “I’m not going to stop until you come.” Realistically speaking, he would stop whenever Harry needed to; that was why they had the safeword in the first place. But making sure she knew the goal would help her achieve it. That’s what Louis was telling himself anyway.

Louis climbed off the bed and plugged the Hitachi in. He tested it against his hand first, surprised at how strong the vibration was. He was pretty sure that if Harry still had her cock, it would have taken less than ten seconds of stimulation under the head for her to come. But Louis had no doubt that against her clit, for whatever reason, it would take longer.

Harry was already panting by the time Louis turned to her with the wand in hand. He picked a comfortable spot, choosing a position that wouldn’t put any more strain on his arm than was necessary, and then slowly, carefully, lowered the wand until it was pressed up directly against Harry’s pussy.

She jolted as soon as the vibration came into contact with her skin. A loud whoosh of air escaped her mouth, followed almost instantly by a gasping inhalation.

“Good or bad?” Louis asked without letting Harry wiggle away from the wand.

“Good,” she managed in a choked-off voice. “Maybe—higher?”

“Higher vibration or physically higher up?”

“The second one,” Harry just squeaked out.

Louis moved the wand up a millimeter and Harry’s eyes practically rolled back in her head. He kept it there, pressing it down a little harder for a moment just to hear Harry squeal.

The rising and falling of her chest was almost hypnotic; Louis couldn’t take his eyes off the way her breasts heaved with each breath. He’d never seen the appeal, not until Harry, but now he couldn’t imagine anything better than this, watching his girlfriend coming rapidly undone.

“Are you close?” Louis asked as sweat started to bead on Harry’s brow.

She started to nod, then paused—shook her head instead. “Need—” she said without finishing.

“What?” Louis wondered.

Harry shook her head again. “Need something,” she replied. “I don’t know.” Her voice was as strained as the muscles in her arms and legs pulling unconsciously at the cuffs holding them in place. Her hips twitched as the wand buzzed insistently against her clit, Louis’s hand keeping up a steady pressure, without fail.

“What do you need?” Louis pressed.

Harry screwed her eyes shut and went a bit pink as she held her breath, shaking her head again in lieu of an answer. Louis stared, waiting for something. An answer, a reaction, anything.

Harry’s face was almost purple by the time she let out the air she’d been holding in her lungs. She drew in a few ragged breaths and then opened her eyes, squirming a bit under the wand. “Pamplemousse,” she said quietly.

Louis’s heart sank. He pulled the wand away immediately and tossed it to the side, still vibrating, so he could unfasten the cuffs keeping Harry secured to the mattress. “You okay?” he asked as he pulled her into his chest for a cuddle.

She nodded, her wayward curls tickling Louis’s nose in the process. “I’m sorry,” she told him. “I really thought this would work, but…I don’t know. It just felt like I wasn’t all the way there I guess.”

“It’s fine,” Louis reassured her. “There’s plenty of stuff we haven’t tried yet, yeah? We’ll find something.”

“Can we try again, like, tonight?” Harry asked, turning her head to look up into Louis’s eyes. “I swear I was almost there. I could feel something.”

Louis hesitated. “Are you sure?” he asked. He slid his hands up and down her arms soothingly. “I don’t want to push you too far.”

“Well, maybe I could just try it on myself,” Harry offered. “While you watch?”

Louis deflated a little. It wasn’t fair of him to be disappointed that she thought she would be better off trying to use their new toy without him, but he couldn’t escape his gut reaction to the proposal. “Yeah, all right,” he said anyway. “After dinner maybe? I don’t know about you, but I’m actually starving.”

Harry giggled and wormed her way out of Louis’s hold. “I’ll start making something. Tacos good?” She bent down to grab her long t-shirt from where she’d left it on the floor and quickly pulled it over her head before heading out to the kitchen.

“Please and thank you,” Louis called after her. He realized after she’d left the room that he was half-hard in his suit trousers and he looked down at his semi with a contemplative frown. It was a good sign, he told himself. Harry hadn’t so much as touched him through all of that, but he’d still been aroused just by watching her, and that was a good thing. It didn’t feel that way though, not when it was still tinged with the failure of their most recent attempt at making Harry come.

Louis was starting to feel a bit defeatist about it all. Maybe it really would be years before Harry’s nerve endings recovered from the trauma of surgery. Or maybe she’d never be able to come. That was a horribly depressing thought, even though Louis wouldn’t hold it against her if that ended up becoming the reality for them. It was a possibility they had both been aware of before she’d even gotten on the waiting list for surgery; it just wasn’t the future either of them had envisioned coming true.

Louis ended up lounging in bed for a while after stripping down to just his boxers, too tired and hungry to get up and help Harry while he waited for dinner to be finished. Luckily, it didn’t take her long, and Louis found himself being called out into the living room before he could make the mistake of falling asleep.

The tacos tasted all the better for Louis not having eaten anything since their pancakes that morning, and he found himself pushing Harry back against the sink so he could kiss her in gratitude afterwards, while they washed up. Louis let his hands wander for a minute, down to her ass, which he gave a little squeeze to before pulling away again.

“Why don’t we try using one of the other toys?” he found himself asking without even really thinking about it.

Harry looked over at him with a confused expression as she turned to finish up the dishes. “What do you mean?”

“Like—” Louis found himself going a bit pink even as he explained, even though it wasn’t like he was talking about anything they hadn’t already done before. “When I would give you handjobs, you liked having something inside you,” he clarified. “You could try a plug or something with the Hitachi.”

“Oh.” Harry stared down at the plate she was scrubbing with her brows furrowed in concentration. “Yeah, okay,” she finally said. “Maybe that’ll help.”

It was really the only possible solution Louis could think of, so he was desperately hoping it would work.

Louis wasn’t sure what Harry had planned once they finally returned to their bed for the night, the cats temporarily locked out with their litter box and food dishes sitting in the hallway. Harry was naked again and had been since she first walked into the room, at which point she’d simply yanked her shirt off again and tossed it back onto the ground. Louis was still in his boxers, not sure if she wanted him naked or not for this. Maybe if she could come then he’d get to too. He could almost make it into a game in his head, that way.

“Do you want me to do anything?” Louis asked as he watched her get comfortable in the center of the bed.

Harry looked up at him and shook her head. “You can sit down,” she said with a soft smile. “I want you to watch.”

Louis sat down. And he watched as Harry slicked up one of the smaller buttplugs in their arsenal before pushing it inside herself. But instead of continuing to lay back with her head against the wall, she switched positions so that she was kneeling instead, her legs spread apart as she reached back to grab a pillow to slot between them.

“How does it feel?” Louis asked as Harry got the wand situated so that all she would have to do is lean forward into it.

“The plug?” Harry asked. “I dunno. Just kinda weird, I think. It’s still different than before.”

Louis frowned a little. That wasn’t a promising response, but maybe it would be different once Harry finally got going.

The vibrations from the Hitachi were no less intimidating than they had been the first time when Harry finally turned it on. She shuffled forward a few inches, arching her hips so that her pussy was pressed up directly against it, and then ground down in slow rhythmic motions, reminding Louis of the way she used to ride his cock. Before.

Louis’s dick hadn’t gotten the memo that it shouldn’t expect the same action that Harry’s pillow was currently receiving. He was almost painfully hard by the time Harry finally sat back on her heels with a weary sigh.

“It really feels like I’m almost there,” she said sadly as she pulled out the plug on her way into the bathroom. “I don’t know,” she added, her voice muffled by the sound of the sink turning on.

Louis didn’t know either. And he was running out of reassurances to give her. So he just stayed silent instead.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

After their abject failure the night before, Louis and Harry had decided to wait a few days before trying again, just to give Harry’s body a little bit of time to reset. She hadn’t come even once, but she was sore as hell just from being tied up for half an hour, especially since she’d been fighting the restraints every step of the way. Which was why Harry was currently fidgeting so much on the bench in Niall’s backyard while they waited for Niall to finish up on the grill.

“Rough night?” Zayn asked tactlessly from across the table.

Louis knew exactly what he was insinuating, and even though it wasn’t that far off the mark, he shot a glare at Zayn for making the implication anyway.

Zayn and Harry had…problems, sometimes. Louis liked to imagine that there were no hard feelings between the two of them after the fight they’d had two years ago on New Year’s Eve, when Harry had gotten far too drunk and accidentally broken an irreplaceable superhero figurine on Zayn’s mantle—something that, while she’d been at fault for the accident itself, Zayn probably shouldn’t have left out during a house party in the first place.

They’d fought more, though, before Harry had come out. Louis wasn’t sure if the tension had lessened because Zayn thought it was uncouth to be ‘frenemies’ with a girl, or what, but Louis had been grateful for the cessation of hostilities no matter the reason. Sometimes though, one or the other would get a little out of control and say things that they maybe didn’t quite mean.

Like right now, for example.

“Nah, don’t get it twisted, bro,” Zayn said jovially as he reached over to clap Louis on the back. “I just never thought we’d see the day when you were getting just as much pussy as the rest of us.”

It was a joke that Louis knew was meant to be at _his_ expense, not Harry’s, but that’s not how she took it.

“Bathroom,” she said curtly as she slid off the bench and practically sprinted to the sliding door.

Louis turned away from her to level one more withering glare at Zayn, who looked bewildered by her reaction to the whole encounter.

“What did I do?” Zayn asked.

Louis shook his head disapprovingly and didn’t answer, instead squeezing past Niall and his flavor of the week at the grill so he could follow Harry inside and make sure she wasn’t too upset.

He found her in the bathroom, where she’d said she’d be, but instead of moping on the toilet lid like Louis had expected, Harry was standing in front of the mirror with her purse propped up in the sink while she frantically rifled through it, looking panicked all the while.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asked as he pressed up against her from behind, delicately resting his chin on her shoulder in hopes that it would calm her down a bit.

It didn’t.

“I forgot to dilate this morning,” Harry said a bit frantically. “I usually put them in my bag when I go to Meri’s, so I just thought—”

Louis took a step back. “Wait, what?” he said with a frown. “You can’t dilate here,” he pointed out. “We’re at Niall’s.”

“Well, obviously I can’t anyway,” Harry shot back as furious tears started to blossom at the corners of her eyes, “because I don’t have my fucking dilators, Lou!”

“Can’t it wait until we get home? I mean, it’s just one day, right?”

Harry promptly started to sob in response.

Louis helped her put the rest of her things back in her purse and then went back out to the backyard again to inform Niall—regretfully—that he and Harry were going to have to duck out early. He knew that the others would assume that Zayn was the cause, but he didn’t much care for clearing the air right then and there when there were more important things at stake. He needed to get Harry home.

It was a long drive, and as soon as they pulled into their parking space, Harry flung off her seatbelt and darted out of the car before Louis could say anything. When Louis finally entered their bedroom a few minutes later, Harry had already pulled off her skirt and underwear and was lying in bed with her legs spread, though her blouse was still on, rucked up around her waist just above her belly button.

She had one of the dilators clutched in her hand, but she looked up at Louis pleadingly as he walked into the room. “I need help,” she said meekly.

“Okay,” Louis replied. He moved closer to her, taking a seat on the edge of the bed as he waited for further instruction.

Harry handed him the tube of lube she always used to dilate. “Fingers?” she said. “I can’t get it in.”

Louis knew she tightened up between dilations, that that was the whole point doing them morning, noon, and night, but he didn’t realize that missing one would be such a huge issue for her. He slicked up his fingers quickly, trying to keep them from shaking as he moved into a more comfortable spot between Harry’s legs. The last thing he wanted to do was hurt her.

Louis carefully pressed his middle finger against her opening and pushed. There was a fair bit of resistance at first, but Louis maintained the same level of pressure, and eventually, his finger slid inside.

Harry gasped.

“Okay?” Louis checked. He glanced up at her from between her legs to find Harry staring down at him with pink cheeks. “What?” he asked, bewildered by the expression on her face.

“Nothing,” she managed. “You can keep going.”

But Harry really _was_ tight, and getting another finger in right away was impossible. Louis pulled his finger out, poured an even more copious amount of lube on it, and slid it back into her again, trying to keep his breathing even and his mind on the task at hand—instead of allowing it to dwell on the fact that Harry’s pussy was indescribably hot and practically strangling his finger, and that at some point, he was supposed to put his cock there instead and somehow not come instantly.

Yeah. Louis was pretty sure that the whole no-dick thing _really_ wasn’t going to be an issue when they finally worked up to penetrative sex again.

“Can you—” Harry paused to take a breath. “Can you like, move, a bit?”

Louis slowly rocked his finger in and out, trying to stretch her a bit like he used to when they were strictly limited to anal. “Like this?”

Harry’s eyes fluttered shut. “Mhmm,” she replied through pursed lips.

Louis took that as a sign to try inserting a second finger again. This time, he managed to squeeze it in alongside the first, and Harry’s eyes shot open in surprise as he slid them into her to the knuckle.

“Oh,” she said very quietly, and Louis could feel something, like a weak muscle contraction around his fingers.

“Still good?” Louis asked her.

Harry nodded emphatically.

“Want to try the dilator now?”

Harry’s face fell. “Yeah, all right,” she grumbled. She waited until Louis moved out of the way before sliding the dilator in with considerably more ease, though her face remained the picture of misery as Louis cleaned off his fingers on the towel before moving to his side of the bed to lie next to her.

“Wanna watch something together while we wait?” Louis suggested.

Harry’s expression brightened a little. “I recorded Dragonheart yesterday,” she said with barely veiled excitement.

Louis wasn’t one for fantasy, but he’d sit through anything if Harry requested it. “Dragonheart it is,” he said as he reached over with his free hand to intertwine their fingers.

They were barely through the exposition of the film, with Harry having paused it so she could focus on inserting the larger of her dilators, when the scene they were watching was suddenly interrupted by Tibert hopping up onto the bureau. He made a horrible hacking sound and then vomited everywhere, causing Louis to leap out of bed just as Harry tried to do the same.

Louis just managed to push her back down against the pillows before she could accidentally injure herself. “Dilator, remember?” he reminded her before quickly going over to clean up the mess that the kitten had made.

The vomit hadn’t consisted of anything but partially-digested cat food from what Louis could tell while mopping it up, but Harry was still an anxious mess all throughout the rest of the movie, constantly interrupting the dialogue onscreen to wonder aloud if something was wrong with Tibert.

After a bit of gentle cajoling, Louis managed to calm Harry down again, and she ended up falling asleep during the last fifteen minutes of the movie. Louis followed soon after—once he’d done a final check on both cats and their dishes and litter box, that is. Even with all the reassurances he’d fed Harry, he told himself as he inspected everything that he couldn’t be too careful.

Louis woke up to the same hacking noise that had soured their movie night. It took him a while to discover the source of the sound, because he didn’t want to turn on the lights and risk waking up Harry, but eventually he found Tibert wedged behind the bathroom door, practically sitting in another pool of cat vomit.

Louis sighed and carefully shut the door so that he could turn on the bathroom light without disturbing Harry’s sleep in the process. Tibert just stared up at Louis innocently as he knelt down with a wad of toilet paper to clean off the tile, as though he was completely oblivious to the fact that he was responsible for the mess.

“You’re very lucky you’re so cute,” Louis murmured to the kitten as he carefully flushed each wad of toilet paper one by one.

Harry was sitting up in bed when Louis slipped out of the bathroom a few minutes later, her anxious expression illuminated by the lamp on the bedside table.

“Sorry,” Louis told her as he made an attempt to climb back under the covers next to her. “I was trying not to wake you up.”

“Did he throw up again?” Harry asked worriedly.

Louis just nodded.

“We need to take him to the vet,” she said, already attempting to throw off the covers to (presumably) get dressed so they could do just that, but Louis wasn’t about to let her freak out over this at five-thirty in the morning.

“He’s fine,” Louis said as he grabbed Harry’s wrist and pulled her back down onto the bed. “Go back to sleep. If it happens again, then we’ll go to the vet.”

Harry was clearly reluctant to go along with Louis’s plan, but despite her sudden burst of energy, she was lying flat on her stomach less than ten minutes later, snoring loudly enough to compete with Harlow in the other corner of the room.

All seemed well a few hours later when they both got up to have breakfast together in the living room. Harry was in charge of the omelets; Louis stuck to chopping strawberries and buttering a few pieces of toast. They ate on the couch, with Harry snuggled up against Louis’s side and Harlow in her lap. Tibert was nowhere to be seen, but neither were concerned since he’d been plenty energetic that morning while being fed.

Tibert popped up again a few minutes later, when Harry finally extricated herself from Harlow so she could help Louis with the dishes. She meowed back at him as he climbed up onto the countertop to be pet while her other hand was under the faucet, which he didn’t seem the least bit alarmed by, and then suddenly, his back stiffened and he hacked up another puddle of vomit directly onto the plate in Harry’s hands.

Both Louis and Harry just stared down at her puke-splattered hand, which thankfully didn’t stay that way with the water going.

“Well, at least this one’s easier to clean up,” Louis offered weakly.

Harry leveled him with a stony glare. “We’re going to the vet,” she said as she did the bare minimum to rinse her hand off before dropping the plate in the sink. “Now.”

Getting Tibert into his carrier took some doing, and then there was the matter of what to do with Harlow while they were gone. Harry wanted to take him with, but Louis managed to wear her down, pointing out that if they were gone for too long, they could always have Anne come by to check on him.

Louis didn’t fault Harry for her (sometimes irrational) emotional responses to things. It sometimes required a bit more patience than he was capable of, but he knew she was coping with everything the best she could, and that the amount of stress she was under due to everything else going on in their lives was only exacerbating the issue.

So despite the fact that Louis didn’t think there was anything fundamentally wrong with Tibert, as well as not having a ton of excess money to throw at a veterinary bill, he went along with Harry’s plan to keep her from freaking out, because he knew that if they didn’t get a clean bill of health for Tibert from the vet, she would lose it.

The vet found nothing wrong with Tibert, of course, but Louis did his best not to seem smug about it, because he knew Harry was legitimately terrified that her kitten was on death’s door.

“Probably just an upset stomach,” the doctor told them after a thorough examination that Tibert endured with a surprising amount of agreeability for a cat. “Is he indoor, outdoor…?”

“Indoor,” Harry replied quickly. “We don’t let them outside.”

“I see.” The vet turned toward Tibert again and sighed. “Well, I really can’t find anything wrong with him, and he seems like he’s okay now, so….”

“The cats got into our pantry yesterday,” Louis volunteered, just in case it was relevant somehow. “I didn’t think they ate anything, but I don’t really know. We weren’t there when it happened.”

The vet nodded. “Could be that, yeah. If he ate something he shouldn’t have, it might just have upset his tummy a bit. He probably just needs a little time to recover. But I would keep an eye on him, make sure he isn’t eating too quickly when you feed him, and come back if he keeps throwing up or if he seems any worse. Okay?”

“Okay,” Harry and Louis both said in unison before getting up to help corral Tibert back into his carrier.

Harry cried a little on the way home even though Tibert had been given a clean bill of health, but that was practically par for the course at this point, so Louis didn’t pay it any mind as he drove. It wasn’t until they got back to the casita, at which point Harry made an immediate beeline for the medicine cabinet without even letting Tibert out of his carrier first, that Louis realized her tears might not have been due to their vet trip.

“Are you okay?” Louis asked as he unlatched the carrier to let Tibert out while Harry dumped a couple tablets of ibuprofen into her hand.

Harry nodded shakily and swallowed them dry. “I’m still sore,” she admitted, her face flushing a little as she answered. “From being tied up, and I think being so stressed about Tibert just made me tense up a lot. My back really hurts.”

“I could give you a massage if you think it would help,” Louis offered.

Harry nodded emphatically. “Please.”

But they still had the dishes in the sink and the cats to get settled first. Louis took care of all that on his own, telling Harry to get undressed and lie down in their bed while she waited. He found her exactly where he expected after everything was tidied up a good ten minutes later, but for a moment, Louis thought she might have fallen asleep in the interim. He tiptoed closer without making a sound, not wanting to wake her if that was the case.

“I’m not asleep,” she mumbled against the pillow, still with her eyes closed.

“How did you know I was there?” Louis asked as he moved onto the bed, positioning himself over her upper thighs so that he was straddling her without applying too much weight.

“You were blocking the window,” Harry informed him. “It got darker when you walked in.”

Louis hummed his acknowledgement of her answer as he looked around for something to use on his hands. “Lotion?” he prompted.

Harry pointed toward a bottle hidden behind her lamp, almost impossible to see from where Louis was sitting. He leaned over her to grab it and squirted a bit onto his palms before rubbing them together.

Harry’s skin was baby smooth everywhere except the top of her shoulders, where she still tended to get breakouts from time to time. Not that Louis cared—he smoothed his hands over the tiny red bumps marring her skin and squeezed as much tension as he could out of her upper shoulders before moving slowly down her spine down to her lower back. He finished off the massage by scooting down almost to her feet so he could do her thighs, too; he knew that after being restrained, she tended to have issues with her leg muscles cramping up for a few days afterward if she managed to overdo it.

“Better?” Louis asked once he was done.

Harry propped herself up a little to peer over her shoulder at him. “Would have been nicer with a happy ending,” she joked.

Louis rolled his eyes. “What, you’re telling me those moans weren’t you getting off just from me rubbing your thighs?”

“I wish,” Harry said wistfully. “You could fuck them, you know,” she added without missing a beat. “If you wanted to.”

Louis sighed slowly through his nose. It was the most tempting offer she’d given him in a while, and Louis couldn’t deny that he was suffering a bit without any sort of physical intimacy between them that was leading to orgasms. Masturbation was only so much help in the long run.

“As much as I would like to,” Louis said truthfully, “I think I’d rather wait for now, okay?”

“Okay,” Harry mumbled sleepily as she collapsed back onto her pillow. “I’m gonna take a nap now. Can you check on Tibert?”

“Yeah,” Louis assured her as he carefully climbed off the bed. “I can do that.”


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry was unbearably antsy the next day. Louis for the life of him couldn’t figure out why.

He let it go for a little while, assuming she would either work it out herself or tell him what was wrong—but she didn’t. She just kept fidgeting, looking at Louis out of the corner of her eyes when she thought he wasn’t paying attention, and by dinnertime on Monday evening, he’d just about had enough.

“Is something wrong?” Louis asked her as he passed the container of mashed potatoes across the table.

Harry’s eyes widened as though she was shocked that he would even ask. “No, of course not.”

“Then why are you acting so weird?”

Harry’s mouth dropped open in a portrait of picture-perfect indignance. “I’m not!”

“You are,” Louis insisted. “You’ve been acting weird all day.” He waited a few seconds, but Harry kept her lips pressed tightly together, not giving him an inch. “You might as well just tell me,” Louis coaxed.

“I—” Harry sucked in a quick breath. “I want you to finger me again,” she said, her face going bright red.

Louis’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, his eyes going wide as he stared at her. “I thought you said it didn’t feel good anymore,” he replied, confused by the request.

Harry’s blush deepened, if that was even possible. “No, not—I mean like on Saturday, when you—” She clamped her mouth shut again.

“Oh,” Louis said in realization. “Oh. Right.” He glanced down at the rest of his food, contemplating whether it would hold up to being microwaved later. “Right now?” he asked.

Harry gave a tiny shrug. “If you want,” she said timidly.

Louis shoved his chair back with an ear-splitting screech and marched over to Harry, pulling her up out of her own chair and leading her into the bedroom. When they made it through the door, Louis pushed her down onto the bed, where she landed flat on her back with a soft sigh.

Louis was so overwhelmed by the fact that she’d apparently liked something enough to ask for it again that he didn’t bother to try and take off either of their clothes. He simply went for the lube on the bedside—the gross-smelling hospital-grade kind that Harry used to dilate—and knelt down between her legs again.

Harry just laid there, silent and wide-eyed, her fingers gripping the pillow under her head as she watched Louis flip the hem of her dress up over her waist and tug her panties down off her legs.

Louis stared at her bared lower half for a moment, a whole new bevy of thoughts suddenly coursing through his brain. “I wonder…” he said out loud, mostly to himself, before ducking his head down and pulling her knees up over his shoulders.

It was a position he’d been in who knew how many times, but this time, Louis didn’t lick over her asshole, like each and every time before. This time, he swiped his tongue directly over her pussy, tasting her for the very first time.

Harry jolted underneath Louis’s mouth, but he didn’t pull away. If it was a bad feeling, she would tell him. And Louis was pretty sure there was nothing that felt bad about what he was doing now.

Her pubes were a contrast of texture as he moved his tongue upward, toward her tummy, before tracing a line back down again. She tasted the same as she had whenever he’d rimmed her, minus the slight metallic taste that was present no matter how clean she was. Louis knew she hadn’t showered since the last time she’d dilated, more than a few hours ago, so the tang of sweat along the crease of her thighs wasn’t unexpected.

Her clit was soft under his tongue as he licked over it for the first time. He still wasn’t sure what he was doing, but this was just foreplay, so Louis wasn’t too concerned with becoming an expert right off the bat.

Harry shivered bodily as Louis licked over her clit again, and again. By the fourth time, it was swollen and hard against his tongue, and he gently nipped at it before moving back to grab the lube from where he’d left it on top of the duvet.

“You liked it when I put my fingers in you yesterday?” Louis asked as he slicked them up again in preparation to do exactly the same thing.

Harry nodded weakly. “Mhmm.” Her face was still bright pink, and her eyes kept fluttering closed, as though she was fighting to stay conscious.

Louis slipped one finger into her and then the next in rapid sequence. She’d dilated in the morning, so she wasn’t as tight as she’d been the night before, but it was still enough pressure on his fingers that he found himself stiffening up in his jeans, to the point where he started to rut against the mattress in search of friction as he repeated the same rhythm with his fingers inside her pussy.

It wasn’t until Louis rotated his hand, palm facing up, that Harry nearly kicked him in the face with her right foot.

“What?” Louis asked, worried, his fingers frozen in place. “Did I hurt you?”

Harry shook her head emphatically. “No,” she squeaked out. “I think you found my prostate.”

Louis swallowed hard and pushed up with his fingers in the same spot, feeling a haze of elation coming over him when Harry went rigid with a loud gasp. “There?”

“Yeah,” she panted. “Oh my god. Please, Lou, please.”

If Louis had realized her repositioned prostate would be just as accessible from her pussy as it had been from inside her ass, he would have put his fingers inside her weeks ago. As if to make up for lost time, Louis didn’t bother teasing her. He fucked his fingers in and out of her as fast as he could manage, crooking them up to hit her prostate on every in-stroke.

“Want you to come for me, babe, I know you can.” He kept up the steady string of encouragement as he fingered her hard, while Harry continued to cling onto the pillow, her breathing heavy and rapid, like it always used to get when she was close.

And then suddenly, Harry clamped her thighs around Louis’s hand, keeping his fingers firmly in place against her prostate as her whole body shuddered and vibrated.

Louis started to keep count of how long it lasted in his head. One…two…three…four…five…. When he got to twelve, the spasms finally ceased, and Harry’s legs flopped open as she melted into the mattress.

“You okay?” Louis asked as he pulled his fingers out of her. It wasn’t until he glanced down at the duvet that he realized the wetness covering his hand wasn’t just from the lube. The pale blue blanket was soaked. “Holy shit.”

Harry sat up a bit groggily. “What?” she asked.

Louis showed her the wet spot darkening the fabric.

“Holy shit,” she said.

They both stared down at the duvet for several seconds before Harry opened her mouth to speak again.

“It’s not pee, is it?” she asked worriedly, apparently second-guessing herself now in the aftermath of her first orgasm in months.

Louis lifted the blanket and took a sniff. He wasn’t remotely squeamish about Harry’s bodily functions at this point in their relationship, and even if it had been pee he wouldn’t have been repulsed by her because of it. “Doesn’t smell like it,” he informed her before touching his fingers to the damp fabric. They came away with a residual slickness that Louis could only attribute to the consistency of Harry’s pre-come from before her surgery. “It’s definitely not pee,” he told her with renewed certainty.

Harry continued to stare at Louis’s fingers for a long moment, her chest heaving under her dress. “I’m still horny,” she announced at last.

Louis arched an eyebrow. “You want to go again?” he asked her.

“Want to try it on myself,” Harry answered as she struggled to get the rest of her clothes off. The bra was still the trickiest bit, even after years of practice, and eventually Louis had to move closer to help her undo the clasp, her hands trembling too much in her excitement to manage it herself.

Once Harry was naked she laid back down against the pillows, her legs pulled up at the knees but still spread wide enough that Louis could see everything when she slid her right hand between them. Her face was screwed up in concentration as she slipped one finger inside herself, then the other, but she only gave it a good thirty seconds before pulling them back out again with a frustrated sigh.

“Nothing?” Louis asked her. He felt like he was on the verge of holding his breath, terrified somehow that her orgasm had been a fluke. One and done.

“The angle’s weird,” Harry complained, her soft pout making Louis want to melt from the cuteness. “Maybe a toy…?”

Louis was up and getting out the box before she could say another word. “Do you want just a dildo or a vibrator, you think?” Louis asked her as he surveyed the plethora of options that they had available to them.

Harry hesitated for long enough that Louis popped his head back up over the edge of the bed to gauge her reaction. She was chewing absently on the fingernail of her left index finger, clearly giving it a bit of thought—but meanwhile, she still hadn’t stopped playing with her pussy with her right hand, her fingertips rolling absently over her clit in a slow, rhythmic motion. She was still visibly wet from her first orgasm, or maybe newly wet in anticipation of the second. It was hard to say either way.

“Vibrator, I think,” Harry finally answered, her hand stilling as she looked down at Louis expectantly.

Louis turned back to the box of sex toys and carefully evaluated their options. He didn’t want anything too big, but the slim metal vibrator they hadn’t used in more than a year because of its size seemed a bit too intimidating in terms of firmness as well. Louis didn’t want Harry to accidentally injure herself with the toy somehow. He continued to survey the rainbow spectrum of phallic offerings before his gaze finally alit on a slim teal G-spot vibrator, something they’d only used once or twice before because products that were actually designed to stimulate the prostate had always worked better. But now…maybe….

Louis climbed back up onto the bed and handed Harry the toy and the lube, not confident that the wetness she’d produced thus far was enough to accommodate something a little thicker than two of Louis’s fingers.

Harry took the lube but set it down immediately, instead pushing the blunt end of the vibrator up against her pussy, rubbing it up and down a few times while Louis watched before finally sliding it in.

Louis watched as the knuckles on her free hand turned white as she fisted the duvet under her, her breathing coming a bit quicker as she fucked the vibrator shallowly in and out.

“Good?” Louis asked her.

Harry nodded and sped up the motion of her hand. “Mhmm.” Her brow was furrowed in concentration as she worked out the best rhythm, but she still hadn’t turned on the vibration.

Louis moved a little closer when he realized the button was on the bottom of the device, at an awkward angle for her to reach without pulling the vibrator out and starting again. He lowered his hand down to touch hers, lightly hovering his finger over the button as she continued to fuck herself while staring up into his eyes, her own glazed over a bit in pleasure already, her mouth slack and wet and open.

“Want it on?” Louis prompted.

Harry nodded, and that was all it took. Louis pressed the button, feeling the vibrations coursing through the tips of his own fingers for a moment before he pulled back again, far enough away that he could see everything there was to see when Harry’s body seized up almost immediately, the muscles in her thighs and calves tensing as another wet spot formed underneath her.

Harry sighed softly as she collapsed back against the pillows, the vibrator still inside her even when she threw both arms up over her head and let her legs relax. Louis scooted forward again to help her take it out, his fingers slick around the base from how wet she was now.

“Had enough?” Louis asked with a gentle laugh as he set the vibrator to the side.

He’d expected her to say yes, but Harry shook her head as she slowly fluttered her eyes open. “One more?” she said in a pleading tone.

“You want me to do it?” Louis asked her.

Harry nodded. “Too tired,” she managed.

So Louis got back down between her legs with the vibrator back in hand, fucking her with it as hard as he dared while she trembled under him, her legs shaking even harder when he bent down to suck on her clit while continuing to thrust the vibrator up against her spot until she was coming again, her thighs clamping down around Louis’s head so hard that he was convinced he’d have a headache because of it later.

Finally, Louis managed to extricate himself from between her legs, the taste of her come lingering on his lips as he got up and went into the bathroom to get a damp washcloth to clean her up. He was achingly aware of his own erection, still pressing painfully against his zipper as he ran the washcloth under the faucet for a few seconds, but he didn’t want to say anything for fear of making it into some kind of exchange of favors. Louis was happy enough to focus on Harry’s orgasms entirely for the time being. And god only knew he had enough new jack-off material to keep him going for the next six months now.

Louis expected to find Harry already half-asleep when he walked back into the bedroom with the damp washcloth clutched in his hands, but was instead surprised by the sight of her with her head propped up again against the wall, her fingers back inside her pussy as she lazily fingered herself, not stopping even when she caught sight of Louis standing there in the doorway.

“I thought you were done,” Louis said now that he had her attention.

“I’m just enjoying the afterglow,” Harry said simply as she continued to glide her fingers in and out of herself. “I think this might be my new favorite hobby, actually.”

“Even though you can’t reach?” Louis asked. He moved closer to the bed, not sure what to do now that Harry wasn’t finished for the night just yet.

“It still feels good,” Harry shot back. “Honestly, I’m just shocked I can even get this wet.”

“We knew it was a possibility,” Louis pointed out. “At some point, at least.” It was an outcome they’d read about on numerous occasions online, even, and was apparently one of the more likely end results of the more advanced vaginoplasty techniques that were presently available.

Harry shrugged, her fingers still inside her pussy up to the knuckle. “I also knew there was a possibility I wouldn’t,” she retorted. “I kind of lowered my expectations after being blindsided by the whole no-orgasm thing.”

“Well, good thing neither of those are problems you have to worry about anymore,” Louis said.

A soft smile curved upward on Harry’s face. “You deserve to get off too,” she said in a coy tone. “Come here.”

Louis didn’t need any further encouragement as he walked forward to the edge of the bed and dropped the washcloth onto the nightstand before unzipping his pants to pull out his cock, which was now so hard it was verging on legitimately painful, even without the pressure from his pants and underwear keeping it constricted.

Harry stared up at him with wide eyes as Louis stood over her, his cock rock hard and throbbing in time with his pulse as he waited for her to do something, anything. But instead of using her free hand to jerk him off while continuing to finger herself, like Louis had expected, she pulled her right hand away from her pussy at long last to instead wrap her come-slick fingers around the base of his shaft, getting him slick with her own wetness before leaning forward to taste herself on Louis’s cock.

Louis’s vision almost whited out when he realized what she’d done, the thought of both of their come combined on her tongue too much for his brain to handle in addition to the feeling of her hot, wet mouth around his dick, sucking hard enough that Louis didn’t even have time to voice a warning before he was coming down her throat.

Harry still managed to swallow it all with ease, her blowjob skills apparently in no way diminished for lack of practice over the past few months. She pulled off with a self-satisfied sigh and kept her hand wrapped around Louis’s cock, her eyes a bit teary from the effort even though she hadn’t gagged so much as once.

“Do you think you can go again?” she asked, not bothering to disguise the greediness in her voice.

Louis had a feeling that Harry would be hard to coax out of bed now that they’d rediscovered sex. It’d be like the honeymoon period of when they first started dating all over again, but worse, because now they didn’t have to worry about Harry’s dysphoria potentially ruining the mood.

Louis stared at Harry’s lips, red and puffy from the friction and still shiny from the combination of spit and come. “Just give me like…five minutes,” he begged, though in all fairness, he wasn’t even sure it would take him even that long to get it up again.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry—being Harry—somehow managed to wait until Wednesday night to tell Louis that she was planning to go into the bakery for a couple hours at a time on Thursday and Friday, just to ease herself back into the rhythm of the job before she was due to go back to her regular shifts the following week.

“I just need you to drive me there,” she explained. “Mom’s gonna pick me up before she goes to work.”

It was a perfectly reasonable request, but Louis still felt a flash of annoyance course through him as he sipped at the mug of tea Harry had made for him after dinner. “You couldn’t have told me a bit sooner?” he asked.

Harry frowned. “I forgot,” she replied, her tone bordering on a whine. “I can start walking there in a few weeks but right now it’s too cold.”

As far as Louis was concerned, he didn’t want her walking anywhere alone at four in the morning after the incident she’d had on the train, no matter how little he wanted to wake up early just to drive her. Louis sighed. “Yeah, I’ll take you. Just don’t forget to set your alarm, okay?”

Harry nodded eagerly before quickly turning her attention back to the television just in time for the commercial break to end.

Louis eyed her skeptically as she watched the TV, watching the bright colors reflecting off her skin for a moment before he opened his mouth to revisit the previous topic of conversation now that there was a break in the dialogue onscreen. “Are you sure you’re ready to go back to work?” he wondered.

Harry’s gaze flitted over to meet Louis’s for a millisecond. “It’s not like I have much of a choice if I want to keep my job,” she pointed out. “I was lucky they were willing to give me this much time off.”

“I know.”

“And besides,” Harry continued, “it’s boring just sitting alone at home all day while you’re gone. I’d rather be at work doing _something_ for a few hours at least.”

Louis nodded along as she spoke. “Maybe we should get another car,” he proposed absently. “Once we have the house, I mean.”

Harry raised her eyebrows, her attention now fully diverted from her show as she stared at Louis, clearly unimpressed by his statement. “When _are_ we going to start looking for that house?” she asked, her tone making it clear that Louis hadn’t been as subtle as he’d thought about his procrastination.

The truth was that buying a house was in itself a hugely daunting prospect, and with everything else they’d had on their plate recently, Louis hadn’t even wanted to give it more than a passing thought. But they needed to move out of the casita, sooner rather than later, and Louis allowing his anxiety to get the better of him wasn’t doing either of them any favors.

Louis sighed again and leaned his head back against the couch cushion. He stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds, going over everything that he needed to do before they started the process of looking for a house in earnest. “I’ll call Ruth this weekend,” he finally decided. Liam’s sister was a realtor who had offered her services to them whenever they were ready to take advantage of her expertise, which had taken at least a little bit of stress out of the whole thing.

“Thank you,” Harry said as she nuzzled into his neck for a moment before pulling back to rewind through the last five minutes of the show she’d missed during their conversation.

Louis still wasn’t used to expecting sex at regular intervals yet, so it took him by surprise when Harry pounced on him the second they walked into the bedroom. If he’d known she was planning on making him come twice (again), he would have accounted for that in his bedtime routine. As it was, he ended up falling asleep a lot later than he would have liked, and when he woke the next morning an hour earlier than usual thanks to Harry’s new schedule, Louis felt like his brain was on fire.

Harry’s job at the bakery would have seemed counterintuitive to anyone that knew her well enough to be familiar with just how much she enjoyed sleeping in, but Louis knew that she also enjoyed baking just as much, and getting paid to do something she enjoyed was really the icing on the cake, so to speak.

Louis drove Harry down the block to the bakery just outside Anne’s neighborhood before turning around and heading straight back to take a thirty-minute nap, all he could squeeze in before he had to get up and get ready for work as well.

They hadn’t exchanged many words in the car thanks to the near-catatonia both had been suffering from that morning, but Louis made sure to text Harry as soon as he got to the office, asking how her first few hours back at her job had gone.

Harry didn’t reply until it was nearly lunch time, at which point Louis had Jordan hovering over his shoulder looking at a document on Louis’s computer. Louis didn’t think anything of pulling out his phone until he was opening the new text message from Harry, at which point he realized he was holding a photo of his girlfriend’s pussy in his hand right in front of his coworker.

“Shit,” Louis mumbled to himself as he nearly dropped his phone in his haste to shove it back in his pocket. He’d been hoping that Jordan was too preoccupied with what was on his computer screen to see, but when Louis glanced back at him, it was clear from the redness in Jordan’s cheeks that he’d seen everything. “So let’s never mention that again?” Louis suggested nervously, trying to laugh it off.

Jordan nodded. “You got it,” he replied before stepping away from the computer to get the finished file from the printer.

Louis found himself seized by an unexpected bout of paralyzing terror as soon as Jordan was gone. What if he’d noticed Harry’s scars? What if he realized what they meant? What if he told people?

It took Louis a good five minutes to calm down and reassure himself that everything was fine, that there was no way Jordan would have even been able to tell that Harry had scars from just a picture on Louis’s phone, but he still felt a bit stressed about it hours later, when he got home to find Harry standing in the kitchen with a tray of cookie dough ready to go in the oven.

She caught on as soon as Louis wrapped his arms around her waist, his face tucked in the crook of her neck as he breathed her in to calm himself down. “What’s up?” Harry asked gently. “Did something happen at work?”

Louis pulled away and gave her a pointed look. “That picture you sent?”

“What about it?” Harry replied, her expression as innocent as ever as she nudged Louis out of the way to put the cookies in the oven.

“Jordan saw it.”

“Your coworker Jordan?” Harry barely reacted to the news as she slid the tray onto the rack before straightening up to set a timer. “Guess it was his lucky day then.”

“That’s all you’re going to say?” Louis asked, his brows furrowed in confusion. He’d expected more…distress, or something.

Harry shrugged as she turned around to face him. “I’d be surprised if it was the first vagina he’s ever seen, Louis,” she replied. “Now let’s fuck before the timer goes off. I’ve been horny all day.”

Louis ended up flat on his back in their bed, still clothed with his pants shoved down around his thighs. Harry’s pussy was already soaked when she climbed on top of him to rub her clit over the hard ridge of his cock where it lay against his belly. She let out a quiet gasp as she rolled her hips before repeating the motion, grinding down even harder until Louis’s grip on her hips was almost bruising.

“No offense,” she said between panting breaths, “but this feels a hell of a lot better than dry humping with two dicks did.”

Louis, with the heat of her wet cunt practically swallowing him up despite not even being inside her, couldn’t say that he disagreed.

Harry rode Louis hard until he came, and once he’d recovered from the force of his own orgasm, he flipped them both over so that Harry was on her back and shoved two fingers into her rough and fast, forgetting all about his former anxieties as he fingered her to a screaming orgasm that had her gushing onto his hand.

“Maybe we should sext more often,” Harry suggested as she stared up at him with her mouth hanging open, her breath still coming in shallow pants.

Louis just nodded. He was pretty sure he would have agreed to anything she said right then after feeling like he’d literally just come his brains out.

By the time the weekend rolled around, making Harry come had become second nature to Louis, and as a consequence, Louis had been thinking about Harry squirting a lot. Like, a _lot_.

It was something that—in hindsight—he should have been a little less surprised by considering how wet Harry had gotten with pre-come before her surgery. Things had been rearranged, and HRT had made her prostate a little smaller (but no more difficult to find, honestly), but the internal plumbing—minus her testicles—was all still connected. So squirting. It made sense. And it was most definitely not piss. She’d come enough on Louis’s tongue at this point that he could have written an entire treatise on the way she tasted. And he could say with one-hundred-percent certainty that was he was tasting was purely Harry’s come.

They’d had quite a few occasions to try making Harry come the same way, and she had. Every. Single. Time. It was their new favorite activity now, and Louis certainly couldn’t complain seeing as how she followed up every orgasm by either pinning his hips down and deepthroating him, or (as long as they weren’t planning on seeing anyone in the next several hours) Louis throat-fucking her until she cried.

They were both getting off at prodigious rates, even with Harry having to go to bed earlier to get up for her test shifts and the fact that Anne seemed to want to spend more and more time with her daughter whenever they were both home—which Louis had been attributing to the presence of the kittens, more than anything, though it was possible that she was just trying to squeeze in a bit of quality time together before Harry inevitably moved out.

So it was a surprise when Louis woke up bright and early on Saturday morning (though not nearly as early as the two of them had been waking), only to find that Harry had apparently decided to forego a bit of messy morning sex and had climbed into the shower without him, already starting her process in getting ready for the day.

Louis promptly marched into the bathroom without knocking and flipped open the shower curtain to interrogate her about why they weren’t staying in bed until at least noon. Then he just stood there for a moment, staring at her under the water. Sometimes he forgot just how fucking hot his girlfriend was. Seeing her naked almost every day for the past three years did little to detract from that.

“Are you going to get in?” Harry asked as she casually rinsed the suds out of her hair.

Louis didn’t respond as he quickly shed his clothes before doing just that. “Why aren’t you in bed?” he asked. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pressed his morning erection up against the curve of her ass, making it clear just what he’d been hoping for.

Harry let out an exaggerated sigh. “Gigi wants to go to the beach tomorrow,” she replied.

“So?”

“I need a new swimsuit.”

Louis was still confused. “What about the Minnie Mouse one?” he asked. It wasn’t, strictly speaking, officially Minnie Mouse-themed, but that’s what the pink with white polka dots had reminded him of, and he’d never let her live it down.

Harry turned to look at him over her shoulder and made a face. “Taylor’s gonna be there,” she replied emphatically.

“Ah.” That explained…a lot, actually.

Taylor had been friends with Harry since they were in diapers, practically, but they’d dated at the tail end of high school, and it had ended in disaster, from the way Harry told it. As a result, their friendship had never quite recovered. The problem with that was the fact that all of Harry’s friends from high school still invited Taylor to various outings from time to time. And it didn’t help matters that Harry had become obsessed with proving herself to Taylor for some reason almost as soon as she’d come out. It was mostly harmless, so Louis had never told her to knock it off, but it did throw a wrench into their social life sometimes.

Plus, under normal circumstances, Harry wouldn’t have even contemplated going on the beach trip to start with. If it had been just their close friends, then sure—she’d have thrown on her tankini and swim skirt and not given a damn about what she looked like underneath it. But if anyone else were going to be there ( _especially_ Taylor), there was absolutely no way she’d risk having a wardrobe malfunction involving her dick and would usually just forego attending entirely.

So this—this was progress.

“Want me to drive you?” Louis asked as he grabbed for the bar soap off the rack (some weird-smelling organic shit that Harry liked because it didn’t dry out her skin).

“Yes, please,” Harry said with a happy sigh.

Louis scrubbed her down quickly and efficiently, only pausing after she’d been rinsed off to get two fingers between her legs, letting her ride them with her hands wound around his neck until the water went cold. Her mouth was warm when she finally wrapped her lips around his cock, though, so he didn’t mind all that much.

They ended up picking Meri and Ruby up at Ben’s house—something Louis didn’t complain about since he knew it would end with Meri pulling out her credit card at the register and buying whatever the hell Harry had picked out with no questions asked about the price.

Harry was only slightly distracted by the baby on the drive there; when they reached the store Meri had recommended, she let out a veritable gasp at the bikinis on display, and for a moment, Louis thought she might burst into tears. Louis might have cried, too, after glancing at the price tags, but thank god for Meri and her obscenely rich executive producer husband.

Louis didn’t like to think about what their present might have looked like if they hadn’t decided to go to the support group that Meri’s charitable organization helped fund. If Harry had never met Meri at that Christmas party and charmed her way into the Winstons’ home and hearts, things might have been a lot different for them. It would have been a hell of a lot harder to afford Harry’s out of pocket surgical costs, that was for sure.

Louis eventually took over watching Ruby while Meri and Harry browsed the store. He watched absently (in between replacing the pacifier that Ruby kept spitting out) as they perused what was available before going into the dressing room with no less than ten different bikini sets. He didn’t bat an eye at the fact that Meri was going in with Harry either. Girls were just…like that, apparently. And Harry was only slightly less of a nudist nowadays than she used to be.

Harry finally emerged about fifteen minutes later with only one article clutched in her hands. Louis couldn’t make out much other than the color—a dark rose—and the fact that it was obscenely glittery. Of course.

Meri, as expected, paid for the swimsuit and then took the two of them out to lunch afterward. Louis drove them home in Meri’s car once they were finished eating, spent a bit of time talking to Ben, who had just gotten home from a shoot, and then ushered Harry back into their own car after nearly an hour had passed during which they were just standing in Ben’s living room, chatting about nothing.

Louis really, _really_ wanted to see Harry in her new swimsuit.

It ended up being just his luck, of course, that she had decided to be an absolute tease about it when they finally got home.

“You’re really not going to try it on for me?” Louis asked, putting on a faux pout, even though he was actually a little upset about it.

“Nope,” Harry said cheerily as she flopped down onto the bed with a sigh. “You can see it tomorrow, like everyone else.”

“Meri got to see it,” Louis pointed out.

“Meri paid for it,” Harry shot back.

Ah. So it was like that, then.

“I still think I deserve _something_ for chauffeuring you around all day,” Louis argued.

Harry was lightning fast about whipping off her top. She wiggled onto her elbows, having just a little more trouble with her bra clasp before throwing that across the room, too. “Fuck my tits,” she said seriously.

And well, Louis wasn’t about to say no to that.

Harry with boobs had been one of the more difficult things to get used to at first. She’d always been a bit chesty even when she’d had a more masculine physique, but neither of them had been adequately prepared for just how much growth she managed to attain once she’d gone on estrogen. They’d both assumed she would end up with modest A-cups, maybe Bs at the end of the first year. Not the C-cups in less than ten months that Harry had unexpectedly found herself in possession of. That had actually been one of the catalysts in Harry coming out publicly to their friends; anyone who didn’t already know, she simply couldn’t hide it from anymore.

It had taken significantly longer for them to work her tits back into their sex life, however. Louis had never been into boobs, never understood why other guys his age were so obsessed with them. If Harry’s breasts had been on any other woman, Louis probably wouldn’t have thought twice about them, but just the sight of her pushing them together to create a channel for his cock had him hard so fast he actually felt a bit light-headed.

“I’m not crushing you, am I?” Louis checked as he hovered over her, doing his best to slick up his dick with the pre-come he was already producing.

Harry shook her head. “Hurry up,” she complained instead. “I want you to eat me out after.”

The sex itself was a bit of a blur, one that felt like it was over before it started, but Louis definitely dreamed about the way his cock had looked nestled between her tits later that night, and the image of Harry’s ducking her head down to lick his come off her nipple was something he was pretty sure he’d never forget.


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis felt like he’d just barely shut his eyes to go to sleep when Harry woke him up bright and early the next morning—and it was _bright_. The small gap in the blinds covering their window was wide enough that Louis often got hit straight in the face with a ray of sunlight in the mornings during the spring. He’d been telling himself they were moving out soon enough that he didn’t need to fix it; something he’d been repeating ever since they’d moved in more than a year ago now.

“Thought the beach thing wasn’t until ten,” Louis mumbled as he turned over onto his stomach to try and avoid being blinded before squinting his eyes open to look at Harry, who was crouched by the side of the bed, already in her bathrobe, rather than naked, the way she’d gone to sleep.

Louis still didn’t understand why Gigi was hosting a beach trip in March of all months. Or why the hell Harry’s friends had agreed to it. Sure, this particular weekend was shaping up to be unseasonably warm, but March? Really? Louis was pretty sure that Harry was going to freeze.

“It is at ten,” Harry informed him. “I need help shaving.”

Louis murmured his assent before slowly rolling out of bed. He should have expected the request, honestly; Harry was notoriously bad at making sure she’d gone over every inch of her exposed skin and usually ended up sporting random patches of stubble on the backs of her calves if left to her own devices.

Harry was already perched on the edge of the tub by the time Louis managed to pull on a pair of shorts before following her into the bathroom, her bathrobe undone and hanging behind her, leaving virtually the entirety of her naked body exposed. Louis raised an eyebrow at that but said nothing as he knelt down on the bathmat with her shaving gel in hand.

Louis had barely started to rub a layer of shaving cream along Harry’s right leg when she spoke up again. “Can you do my—bikini area?” she asked, stumbling through the question even though Louis’s mouth had been on her clit less than twelve hours ago and it wasn’t exactly something she should have been embarrassed about.

Still, Louis’s eyebrows went up even more. “All of it?” he asked. Harry liked a bit of hair, even though she had a lot less of it than she used to. “You’re not planning to flash Taylor or something are you?”

“No!” Harry replied hotly. “It’s just that the fabric on my suit is kinda thin. You can see my pubes through it.”

Louis nodded slowly. “Sure,” he finally replied. He didn’t have a problem doing it if she wanted to, even though it was something he certainly wasn’t used to seeing—and something he kind of hoped she wouldn’t make a habit of. Louis really liked her pubic hair. It was cute.

Though, once he started in on her with the razor, her legs spread wide and trembling ever-so-slightly, Louis was tempted to change his opinion. He could see the appeal in the process, at least. There was nothing inherently sexual about what Louis was doing, but having her exposed and vulnerable like this—placing her trust wholly in Louis to finish the job without hurting her—had him half-hard in his shorts before they even made it to the shower.

Harry ended up pressed against the back wall of the shower with Louis covering her completely, their tongues meeting in the middle as Louis tried to shift her legs apart just a little farther so he could get his hand between them as they kissed.

Harry smacked Louis’s hand away just as he got close. She broke away from him with a gasp and a warning glare. “I don’t want to get razor burn,” she whined when he made another attempt, not sure yet if she was serious or if it was one of the games they sometimes liked to play.

“All right, all right,” Louis replied before quickly backing off to let her under the spray. It didn’t stop him from lightly palming his cock as he looked at the soap suds running down her body as she washed her hair, though, his gaze fixed on the way the water streamed down between her breasts and over her newly shaven pussy. “Maybe I am straight now,” Louis pronounced with a smile.

Harry rolled her eyes and tipped her head back to get the rest of the shampoo out of her long hair. “Shut up,” she retorted. “I don’t even understand why you’re so obsessed with labels anyway.”

Louis had meant it more as a joke if anything, but the whole sexuality thing was still a bit of a sore spot for them both, so he was careful to keep his tone light as he responded. “We can’t all be as enlightened as you, babe.”

“You know that’s not what I mean,” Harry replied before moving out of the way to let Louis have a turn under the water.

“Yeah, I know,” he told her as she climbed out of the shower. “It’s fine, I get what you mean.”

He just fundamentally disagreed, was all. Louis had always taken comfort in being gay. Where Harry found labels restrictive and uncomfortable, Louis had always felt a sense of security and belonging. And he didn’t begrudge her their differences, but he couldn’t figure out a way to make her understand why being forced to reframe the way he understood his own identity had been so jarring for him. It had gotten easier over time, but sometimes Louis missed the days when defining his sexual orientation didn’t require a five-minute explanation.

Louis forced himself to think of something else as he stood under the showerhead, his eyes closed against the warm water as he stood there for a moment without moving a muscle. Harry had cockblocked him when they’d been in the shower together, but that didn’t mean Louis wasn’t allowed to fantasize about the way she’d looked during that spectacular tit-fuck they’d engaged in the day before. Or the expression on her face every time he made her come. Or the way she tasted when she was wet just from the anticipation of knowing they were going to have sex again.

Yeah. Sometimes his girlfriend was like something straight out of a porno. And truth be told, that was one thing that had never changed in all the years they’d been together.

Harry had already gone back into their bedroom by the time Louis finally got around to finishing himself off, but he didn’t expect to find her already fully dressed when he emerged a few minutes later, the mystery bathing suit Meri had purchased for her already obscured by her black vintage band tee and denim cut-offs.

Louis pouted openly as he pulled off his towel before putting on his own swim trunks. “I can’t even get a sneak peek?” he pleaded.

“Nope,” Harry replied breezily as she slipped past Louis to grab the keys and her purse from the row of hooks mounted on the wall in the hallway. The kittens swarmed around her feet, expecting either treats or toys, but Harry had been better about ignoring their incessant requests for food and attention lately. “You can see it when we get there,” she informed Louis, “along with everyone else.”

Louis wasn’t sure why Harry was specifically choosing to deprive him of being able to see her in her new bikini before they left for the beach, but the only saving grace was the way her ass looked as she bent down to put on her shoes at the door, her long legs making Louis’s mouth water when she sauntered down the drive and nearly putting a tent in Louis’s board shorts despite the fact that he’d just gotten off less than fifteen minutes ago.

“Taylor’s going to be sorry she ever broke up with you,” Louis said dreamily as he climbed into the driver’s seat.

Harry threw her head back and cackled. “I’m glad she did,” she replied. “She was hot—she still is, unfortunately—but god, we were a train wreck.”

“I wish I could have seen you in high school,” Louis replied, his tone wistful. They’d both grown up in the greater LA area, but nowhere near enough for their social circles to intersect until college. “I wouldn’t have dumped you the day before prom.”

Harry snorted. “I was a dweeb in high school,” she retorted. “You wouldn’t have given me a second glance.”

“Sure I would’ve.”

“Absolutely not.”

The lighthearted argument continued for only a few more minutes, but Louis kept a hold of Harry’s hand the whole way to Zuma, where they were supposed to meet up with the others in the parking lot before heading down to the beach itself to pick a good spot to lay out their blankets and coolers.

They’d all arranged to meet early in the day; it wasn’t even technically spring, yet, so the beach wouldn’t be as crowded as it normally was, but none of them wanted to take any chances, seeing as how their party was comprised of a good two dozen people and their various beachside accessories.

This definitely wasn’t the way Louis had envisioned his weekend going, and after the way things had gone yesterday, he was itching to have a weekend all to themselves where he and Harry didn’t have any obligations beyond eating, sleeping, and fucking for a full forty-eight hours.

But Louis knew that this was a big deal for Harry, especially since she hadn’t had many opportunities to go out since getting out of the hospital. And he would never want to deprive her of a chance to one-up Taylor.

Louis was pretty confident that Harry would succeed in that respect, even if he was aware that he was a little biased.

Louis was still fondly reminiscing about Harry’s tits when they arrived at the parking lot, where a crowd of all their friends (and acquaintances) had already begun to gather. It was definitely sunny enough out when they stepped out of the car and made their way over to the others, but there was a slight chill in the air still that made Louis regret agreeing to come along on this trip in the first place.

It warmed up soon enough, though, and shortly after the group picked a good spot along the beach, Louis found himself audience to an unintentional strip show in the form of Harry peeling off her t-shirt and shorts to reveal a high-waisted bikini in the same glittery pink fabric he’d caught a glimpse of at the store. His eyes might’ve bugged out of his head a bit. It was _really_ flattering.

Louis sat on the beach with some of their friends for a bit before deciding an hour or so in that it was finally warm enough to get in the water. He extended a hand to Harry, who took it without question, and together the two of them walked down to the shoreline and waded slowly into the breaking waves.

“Think Taylor was jealous?” Louis joked as they made their way into deeper water.

“Of the suit?” Harry replied, confused. “I’m sure hers cost twice as much.” She punctuated that statement with an exaggerated eye roll that Louis couldn’t help but laugh at.

“At how hot you look in the suit, babe,” he clarified, pulling her into him with an arm around her waist.

“Oh,” Harry said. Her eyes widened and then darted over to where their friends were all still frolicking on the sand. “Do you think…?” She didn’t finish the question, but her hand snaking past the waistband of Louis’s board shorts and curling around the base of his cock said a lot more than words ever could.

The friction was just a little on the bad side of too much, but Louis was finally getting into it when Liam came trudging through the waves over to meet them, his arms flailing wildly like a little kid who had just been brought to the beach for the very first time.

“Hey!” he called out, causing Harry to freeze up with a highly incriminating expression plastered on her face. “Are you guys going to—” He stopped dead, his eyes alighting on the angle of Harry’s arm and the way she and Louis were practically glued together in the water. “Oh, gross,” he muttered before turning right back around again and heading for shore.

Louis and Harry watched him go in silence before abruptly bursting into laughter, their hilarity cut short only a few seconds later when a wave cascaded over their heads and nearly drowned them both in the process.

Louis was forced to stand at least waist high in the waves for a few more minutes while Harry had the privilege of sprinting back onshore to suntan on their blanket. Louis squinted at her from a distance, just watching as she got comfortable—which really wasn’t helping all that much with getting rid of his boner, but oh well.

He didn’t notice Taylor floating towards him in a hot pink inner tube until she was literally in his eyeline, at which point Louis’s eyes widened at the sight of her, something she noticed immediately as she rolled her eyes in response.

“I’m not gonna bite,” she said, planting her feet in the sand next to him so that she wouldn’t drift away, but staying low to the ground so that the water was up to her neck.

Louis crouched down next to her, feeling awkward standing above her knowing that his dick was still half-hard under the surface of the waves. “Did I really look that scared?” he joked. “I just didn’t notice you coming over here is all.”

Taylor nodded in acknowledgement. She looked vaguely constipated as she followed the line of Louis’s vision all the way to where Harry was lying on her back, her exposed skin glimmering nearly as brightly as her swimsuit under the sun overhead.

“Look,” she said after a few more seconds had passed, still not making eye contact with Louis, who was warily scrutinizing her expression for any warning signs indicating that he should hightail it out of the water before she said something he didn’t want to hear. “I know Harry and I don’t really get along, and that’s probably mostly my fault, but….”

“But?”

Taylor sighed. “I just wanted to make sure that she’s doing okay, I guess?” she said as she finally glanced over at Louis again. “Like, I didn’t even think she was going to come today. Gigi said that she and Cara have tried to come over and see Harry a few times but that she’s always said she wasn’t feeling up to it.”

Louis’s expression rapidly morphed into a concerned frown. This was the first he was hearing of this and he didn’t know what to think. He’d always just assumed that it was too much work for Harry’s friends (most of whom lived on the opposite side of the valley) to come all the way to Anne’s house to see her when they all had jobs and their own lives to worry about. He didn’t realize that Harry had been actively rejecting their offers to come and cheer her up.

“Did she say anything else to them about it?” Louis wondered.

Taylor’s brows drew together. “You didn’t know about that?” she asked, sounding genuinely surprised to hear it.

Louis shook his head.

“Oh.” Taylor blinked a few times before continuing. “No, I don’t think so. Cara seemed annoyed by it, but I know Gigi was just planning to keep inviting her to things just in case she changed her mind.”

“Well, that’s good,” Louis replied. “I think.” He turned his head to look out at Harry again, wondering just what it was that she wasn’t telling him. She hadn’t seemed uncharacteristically depressed, at least not since they’d gotten the cats, but declining any invitation to hang out with her friends just didn’t seem like her at all.

He didn’t get a chance to ask Harry about it until later, when they were finally on their way home after filling their bellies with subs and beer, courtesy of Liam, of course. He’d been a welcome addition to the combined supergroup of Harry and Louis’s friends that had finally formed once Zayn and Gigi started dating (the first time), and it was in no small part because of his willingness to supply every outing with copious amounts of food and drink.

Harry was almost asleep as she laid in her seat with her head pressed against the window, the sun and the alcohol apparently having gotten the best of her. But Louis was determined to get an answer, and he didn’t want to wait until they reached home to hear it.

“Why have you been telling your friends not to come over?”

Harry’s eyes abruptly opened, her head straightening to look over at Louis with a disgruntled expression. “Who told you that?” she asked instead of answering.

“Taylor,” Louis replied easily. “She said that Gigi and Cara have been trying to come visit you at Anne’s house but that you keep telling them no.”

There was a long silence before Harry finally responded. “It’s complicated,” she said.

“We have time,” Louis retorted, gesturing to the seemingly endless line of cars in front of them, all backed up at the freeway entrance waiting for the light to turn green again.

Harry tipped her head back and sighed. “It’s just…I don’t know. I guess I always felt like I was never really part of the group when I hung out with them even after I came out, you know? I don’t think they ever tried to make me feel left out or anything, but they were always the type of girls to go skinny-dipping and get Brazilians together and all that shit and I could never do any of that before so….”

“But you could do it now,” Louis pointed out, even though he didn’t think that Harry would be getting regular Brazilian waxes with her rich girl Malibu and West Hollywood friends anytime soon.

“Yeah,” Harry replied, “I could. But I didn’t want to feel like that was the only reason they wanted me around still, and that’s just how I was feeling afterward, I guess.”

“But you know that’s not what they think,” Louis protested as they finally began to inch forward, one car at a time.

“I know,” Harry replied, sounding exasperated and simultaneously on the verge of tears. “It wasn’t like—I was just feeling bad about myself at the time, okay? It’s not that big of a deal anymore. I’m over it, I promise.”

Louis glanced over at her worriedly, trying to gauge whether she was really telling the truth or if this was a deeper issue that he needed to be aware of. He met her eyes for a few seconds longer than he should have; a loud honk from behind alerted him to the fact that the cars in front of them had all disappeared, leaving the turn lane ahead wide open.

Louis grumbled a quick curse under his breath as they shot forward to make the next light before it turned red. “You can tell me that kind of stuff, you know?” he said to Harry, reaching over to take her hand again once he’d accelerated enough to merge into the flow of traffic on the freeway. “Even if it’s not a big deal.”

“I know,” Harry replied with another sigh, but this one was softer, more affectionate in its resignation as she gave Louis’s fingers a quick squeeze before going silent again.


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

It was a few weeks before Louis finally got the relaxing weekend alone with Harry that he had been so desperately wanting.

Now that Harry was officially done with her recovery period, she seemed to suddenly be in high demand from anyone and everyone they both knew, something Louis thought would be an improvement in their lives but ended up just making him nostalgic for when he’d been able to come home every day to have a quiet evening with Harry and Harry alone.

The first strike was courtesy of Gemma, who had invited Harry out shopping the Saturday following her first week back at work (which had been every bit as rough as Louis had anticipated, even with the shifts meant to ease her back into the routine). The purpose of the trip was two-fold: Gemma wanted to celebrate Harry’s return to real life responsibilities, of course, but she also wanted to make up for the fact that her younger sister hadn’t been asked to be part of Lottie’s bridal party even though Gemma had.

Louis knew that Harry wasn’t actually as cut up about not being included as she had been when she’d first found out. After Louis had talked to Lottie about it, and then to Harry again, Harry had confessed that she was secretly grateful to be able to watch from the sidelines after hearing about what a clusterfuck the wedding planning had quickly become.

But still, Louis didn’t want to deny Harry the chance to spend time with her sister, nor the offer of a free shopping spree. Louis might have been quietly hoping that Harry would come home with some new lingerie, but if Harry had bought any, she didn’t bring it up when she got home that night, exhausted from walking around all day and too tired to do anything more than lay flat on her stomach with her legs spread while Louis made her come so she could go to sleep.

The second strike was Louis’s fault, actually. Well, Louis motivated by Harry, that is. He’d called Ruth as promised and they’d had to set up a meeting so the three of them could go over their budget and expectations for buying a house. It wasn’t exactly easy to do considering the fact that they had very little choice but to stay within the bounds of the LA metro, and the closer to Louis’s office they strayed, the more expensive the properties got.

As a result of the unavoidable complications of buying property in California, what had been intended to be a two-hour meeting soon turned into four, and Louis had felt badly enough about taking up so much of Ruth’s time (even though in the end he knew she would still end up pulling in her percentage after the sale) that he couldn’t stop himself from offering to buy her and her husband dinner afterwards.

The third and final strike was something that neither Harry nor Louis could have anticipated. Fizzy had gotten into a small accident while mountain biking with some of her friends from school and had broken an ankle—or so she thought. Jay had called Louis in a panic and asked him to come over and watch the younger kids while she drove out to the middle of nowhere to pick up Fizzy and take her to the hospital, and Louis really had no choice but to agree.

“You seem oddly happy about this,” Louis observed as they made the long drive to his childhood home.

“Should I not be?” Harry replied with a raised eyebrow. “I like hanging out with your siblings.”

“You like hanging out with any children,” Louis pointed out, “regardless of their relation to me.”

Harry just shrugged. There wasn’t anything for her to deny. Louis was well aware that she intended to raise an entire stable of children as soon as they were able to pay for the process of adoption. Or surrogacy, as Dr. Hawkins had recommended. They still hadn’t settled on which option they thought would be better.

Jay was waiting for them in the driveway when they arrived, the keys already in her car and the engine on. “Thank you for coming on such short notice, dear,” she said as she kissed both of them on the cheek before ducking into the driver’s seat and reversing out of the driveway at a breakneck speed.

“Is Fizzy going to be okay?” Harry wondered as they walked in.

Louis nodded. “Mom sent me the pictures of her foot. It’s pretty bruised, but they’re just sitting on the side of the trail waiting. Might not even be a break either, just a bad sprain, you know.” He pulled out his phone to show Harry the photos just as the two of them were rushed by a gaggle of small children. “Heyyy guys!” Louis said with a laugh, bending down to scoop up the two toddlers in his arms while Harry took his phone. “You guys want to watch a movie while Harry and I make some dinner?”

He was nearly deafened by a chorus of ‘dinosaur nuggets’ and ‘Swan Princess’ in response to his query, so Louis exchanged a meaningful look with Harry before traipsing into the living room to put on the requested film to keep them busy.

The distance between the hospital and the trail Fizzy was stranded on combined with the brutal wait time at the ER meant that Harry and Louis were babysitting until well after midnight, and by the time they got home, the two of them were too drained to do anything but sleep, despite all their plans that morning to spend their Sunday afternoon lounging in bed and fucking until they got too hungry to keep going.

It was at that point that Louis realized that real life was just going to keep getting in the way of their plans, and that if they wanted to make the most of their time with each other, they were going to actually have to schedule it. And say no when other commitments eventually came up.

But even when they did have the opportunity to spend time together…. Well, they were still having sex as often as humanly possible, but it was finally beginning to dawn on Louis after a couple weeks of trading off between manual and oral that they weren’t actually going any further than that because Harry didn’t want to pressure him into doing anything he wasn’t comfortable with.

Once Louis came to that realization, it turned into somewhat of an obsession. Louis knew he wanted to make the jump from third base to home, as it were, but he couldn’t seem to commit to actually saying the words aloud, instead just hinting and hoping that Harry would suggest they move things along out of pure sexual frustration, if nothing else.

After another week of fruitless attempts at nudging Harry in the right direction, Louis was finally forced to admit defeat. He had no choice but to confront Harry himself and declare his desire to take the next step in their relationship. It was almost comical when he thought about it that way. They’d been together for years now and had been sexually active practically from the first date; the fact that they were having a conversation about moving to penetrative sex after all this time made Louis feel like he was back in a high school romance all over again.

Louis had planned it out in his head a bit more gracefully but ended up finally blurting it out in the middle of a romcom, of all things, while Harry had been curled into him on the couch, the scent of her shampoo in his nose and her arm wrapped around his waist, her skin softer than either of the kittens’ fur as he traced up and down her shoulder with his fingers.

He was in love with her, Louis remembered, the knowledge hitting him as hard as though he were realizing it for the very first time. And he wanted to love _all_ of her.

“Babe,” Louis said in a voice just loud enough to be heard over the cheesy movie dialogue.

Harry glanced over at him with something akin to a glare before doing a double take upon seeing the expression on his face. “What is it?” she asked in a worried tone as she leaned forward to pick up the remote from the coffee table and pause the movie.

“I just—I was—” Suddenly, Louis couldn’t find the right words. “Do you want to have sex?” he blurted out.

Harry raised an eyebrow. “You couldn’t wait until we were done with the movie?” she asked flatly.

“No, I mean—do you want to have _sex_. Like. Heterosexual, missionary position, my penis in your vagina sex.”

Harry’s eyes widened. Her fingers curled tightly around the fabric of Louis’s t-shirt, as though it were a security blanket that she was unconsciously clinging onto. “Oh,” she said, sounding a bit like she’d lost the ability to breathe all of a sudden. “Are you sure?”

Louis nodded. “If you want to,” he amended.

It wasn’t five seconds before Harry was in his lap, her tongue in his mouth, kissing the living daylights out of him. She rocked down against Louis’s crotch in a very familiar manner, but he knew what came after would be unknown territory. This time, there was no bulge rubbing against his when he started to get hard, and when Louis slipped a hand into Harry’s joggers, he no longer felt surprised by the soft, wet heat that he encountered between her legs.

“Bed, maybe?” Louis gasped out as he finally broke away from the kiss.

Harry nodded eagerly and kept her legs firmly wrapped around Louis’s waist as he stumbled to his feet and then carried her into the bedroom, just barely managing to deposit her onto the mattress a few short seconds before his legs would have given out.

Harry started to lift up her shirt, but Louis batted her hands away before she could pull it any higher than her belly button. “Let me,” he insisted before following the path of his fingers as he dragged the shirt up with his lips and tongue too.

She wasn’t wearing any kind of fancy lingerie underneath the sleep shirt and sweatpants thanks to the fact that Louis had caught her completely off-guard. She had on only a pair of cotton panties and a bra that had seen better days under the comfy clothes she only wore around the house. But Louis didn’t care about that. Harry was real and here in front of him and that was all that mattered. She was every bit as beautiful to him like this as she was when she was all dressed up, and pretty soon it didn’t matter anyway, because every article of clothing was merely another obstacle as Louis desperately stripped her naked while she lay underneath him.

Louis finished undressing Harry first before even starting in on his own clothes. He leaned over to open the nightstand drawer as he tore off his shirt, pulling out some of the nicer-smelling lube from the bottom and handing it to Harry before stepping back again to shimmy out of his gym shorts.

She didn’t hesitate in getting herself wet, and although Louis would have liked to have been the one to make sure she was ready, he was already beginning to have doubts about just how long he would last. Still, he couldn’t resist sliding his fingers into her as he knelt down between her legs, just as naked as she was now.

“Condom?” Louis asked.

Harry hesitated, and then shook her head. “Wanna feel you come,” she said, reaching up to pull Louis in even closer.

Louis grabbed the base of his cock, steadying himself with the other as he tried to focus his breathing and make sure there weren’t going to be any premature accidents. He could practically feel the warmth radiating out from the center of Harry’s thighs, drawing him in.

Louis moved forward an inch or two, rubbing the head of his cock along the seam of Harry’s labia. She was probably wet enough for the both of them already, but Louis reached for the lube anyway and drizzled even more along his shaft. He barely swiped his hand along his length to spread it around, still worried that he was already too close to coming before even getting inside her.

“Tell me if I hurt you, or if you want to slow down.” Louis was fully aware of how cliché it all sounded, but there was really no helping it, unfortunately.

This was, for all intents and purposes, Harry losing her virginity for the _second_ time.

Thankfully, Harry seemed to be on the same page. “Okay,” she replied easily. “But I really need you to fuck me now.”

Louis didn’t need any further invitation. He carefully angled himself at the opening of her pussy, pushing in slow and carefully. He knew that she had loosened up a bit with her own fingers, but sliding inside her still felt like putting his cock inside a vise, and he found himself breathing heavily through his nose to keep from completely losing it.

“You okay?” he asked in a taut voice, after he’d gotten the head in.

Harry winced a little. “I think so?”

It wasn’t the response Louis wanted to hear. “Didn’t you dilate this morning?”

Harry huffed out a laugh. “Trust me, baby, you’re a lot bigger than the dilators.”

Normally, Louis would be flattered by that sort of talk—turned on, even—but right now he could barely concentrate on anything but the way Harry’s pussy was strangling the head of his dick. “Should I keep going or pull out?” he asked.

Harry considered it for a moment. “Keep going,” she finally decided. “But slow.”

Louis nodded and carefully inched his way inside her. He was surprised when he bottomed out only to find that there was still a good two inches that he hadn’t managed to get in. “Is that normal?” he asked, glancing up to meet Harry’s somewhat glazed eyes.

It took her a second to figure out what Louis was referring to. “I think so?” she replied. “Dilation’s supposed to help with the depth a bit, like, over time.”

Evidently, Louis would just have to be very, very careful in the meantime. No more rough, balls deep pounding at any point in the near future. Louis would have been disappointed if he’d still had the ability to think beyond the incomprehensible, crushing pressure currently surrounding his cock.

“Tell me when I can move.”

“Be gentle,” Harry replied, as if Louis needed reminding.

“Of course,” Louis said with a lopsided smile. “It’s your first time.”

That got a laugh out of Harry that constricted the pelvic muscles surrounding Louis’s dick even further, and he had to blow all the air out of his lungs in a huge sigh to keep from coming right then and there.

“You okay?” Harry asked, turning the question around on him.

Louis nodded, though he could already feel beads of sweat starting to drip down the back of his neck and under his arms. “Yep. Peachy.”

It was another minute before Harry was ready to continue. Once she gave the okay, Louis started to rock in and out of her with slow, careful movements, extremely heedful of the fact that she wasn’t producing enough of her own lube to handle something as large as his dick, and that there was only so much room between her narrow hips to work with in the first place.

None of that mattered very much, though, in the grand scheme of things. Louis was big enough that he was pressing insistently on Harry’s prostate even when he wasn’t moving, and when he did start to fuck in and out of her, slow at first, and then a little faster, she immediately started to let out soft, punched out gasps with each stroke as he gently bottomed out.

Harry didn’t get any looser as Louis fucked her, and he knew it wouldn’t be long before his own orgasm was inevitable. He would have liked to get Harry to come first, but that seemed almost impossible for the time being, so he settled for rubbing the underside of her clit with firm, rhythmic motions, wanting to make this first experience at least a fraction as good for her as it was for him.

Inevitably, Louis came first, spilling in hot ribbons inside Harry’s pussy and riding out the aftershocks in the hot clutch of her body before finally pulling out, shivering a bit at the oversensitivity when she clenched down on him involuntarily in the process.

He was quick to replace his cock with his fingers, and Louis wasn’t squeamish about the fact that he was using his own come as lube. He fucked her with hard, shallow strokes, making sure to press into her prostate until she was shaking and crying and gushing all over his hand with her orgasm.

After, he cleaned her up, helped her brush her teeth in bed, and then climbed in with her, knowing that she was probably too sore, or just too tired to move anywhere for the time being. Louis cuddled her with his chest pressed against her shoulder, his groin to her hip, her head tucked up under his chin and the blankets still strewn about at their feet so that he could see every part of her exposed under the dim lamplight coming from their nightstands.

It never ceased to amaze Louis how quickly his brain had managed to adapt to Harry’s shift in identity. He knew it probably wasn’t like that for everyone, and he counted himself lucky that adjusting to Harry’s transition had been far easier than he could have ever expected. When they’d first met, Louis knew he couldn’t have imagined ever finding anyone more beautiful than Harry had been as a man—now, he couldn’t even begin to fathom finding anyone more beautiful than she was as a woman. Including the Harry from his memories.

This Harry was perfect, because she was _happy_ , and Louis didn’t want her any other way.


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I stupidly forgot it was Thursday today, so please forgive the tardiness on this one. Feel free to bug me on social media if (when) it happens again.
> 
> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

“Pride parade’s coming up.”

Harry was on the couch, sorting through coupons in anticipation of making a big trip to the grocery store tomorrow. She apparently wasn’t listening to Louis at all. “Hmm?” she replied, without even looking up.

“It’s almost May,” Louis said a bit louder. “The parade? In Long Beach?”

Harry’s quizzical expression when she finally glanced up seemed to imply that she had no clue why Louis was telling her this. “Okay?”

“Cara needs us to RSVP for the party after the parade,” Louis clarified.

It was practically a tradition at this point, so he had no idea why Harry was being so obtuse. Literally, since the year they’d first met, the two of them had gone to the Pride parade in Long Beach with Cara, Zayn, and whichever of the rest of their friends they could convince to come, before they all headed to Cara’s mom’s condo in Malibu for a night of revelry. The party was always big enough and lasted long enough that Cara required strict RSVPs from everyone planning to attend so she could stock up with enough alcohol to get them through the night.

Harry was always way more excited for the party than Louis was, so he’d been surprised to find the invitation pinned to their fridge a week after they’d received it, still unanswered.

There was an odd look on Harry’s face, and she quickly glanced back down at the coupons in her lap, avoiding Louis’s eyes. “I don’t really know if we should go,” she finally replied.

“Why not?” Louis asked, frowning. He knew that Cara had been upset about Harry rejecting all her offers to come visit in the first couple months after Harry’s surgery, but he was under the impression that they’d already sorted everything out. They’d literally just hung out with each other less than a week ago, while Louis had been at work. “I mean,” he added when Harry didn’t answer, “we can go to the parade and come home instead of going to Cara’s, if you want. I’m not that attached to the party, but—”

“I mean, I don’t know if we should go to the parade,” Harry interjected. She lifted her eyes again, and Louis could tell that if it hadn’t been for the grimace she was putting on, she probably would have burst into tears already. It didn’t take much to set her off, but there was something in her face that made Louis think this was a bit more serious than usual.

“What?” Louis replied automatically. “Why?” They always went to the Pride parade. They’d even gone when Harry had fucking food poisoning two years ago, even though Louis had practically begged her to stay home. She’d vomited in two separate trash cans while they were out, of course, but she’d been all smiles the whole night even so. Which was why this unexpected change of heart was so concerning.

Harry just shrugged as she looked away again.

“Harry,” Louis tried. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to, but—”

“I do want to go,” she replied softly.

Louis’s head was spinning. “Then why did you—”

“I said that I didn’t think we _should_ go,” Harry reiterated. “Because—” She stopped short, her teeth clicking shut with an audible sound.

“Because?” Louis pressed.

Her eyes hardened. “Because, like, we’re just some boring straight couple now.”

Ah. So that’s what it was about. “Babe,” Louis said carefully, “neither of us are straight.”

“Nobody there would know that,” she grumbled. “And you’re the one who always used to laugh at all the ‘corny heterosexual PDA’ or whatever when we first went.”

Okay, Louis _had_ done that, but he was a changed man now, with a different perspective on the world. “Zayn and Gigi both go,” Louis pointed out, hoping to distract Harry from the fact that it was apparently his fault—or his past self’s fault, at least—that she was feeling so insecure about going to Pride.

“Zayn doesn’t give a fuck about what other people think,” Harry replied.

“And you do,” Louis assumed.

She shrugged. “I guess?” She still looked kind of miserable. “I just don’t think I could go and know people think I’m some straight girl going because it’s cool now, you know? It would just…I don’t know. It would make me feel bad.”

Louis nodded. Some part of him was annoyed that this was something she was even worried about, because it wasn’t like transitioning had wiped away the entirety of her past and everything she’d gone through to get to this point, but he understood that she was insecure about what other people thought about her, and he knew that trying to reassure her that their opinions didn’t matter wouldn’t work.

“Look,” he tried instead, “how about I talk to Zayn and the four of us can pair off at the parade so you’ll be with Gigi instead of me. Would you be more comfortable with that?”

Harry considered it for a moment and then nodded slowly. “Sorry I’m being so weird about this,” she said with a sigh. “I know Pride used to be _our_ thing.”

“It’s fine,” Louis said with a smile as he moved over to the back of the couch to lean down and press a kiss against the top of her head. “We can do as much PDA as you want at the grocery store in front of all the straight people to make up for it.”

Louis ended up fulfilling that promise the next day when they made their monthly trip to Costco to stock up on anything and everything they could possibly need—provided it was on sale and they actually had room for it, that is. Louis was strongly considering asking Ruth to make sure that any houses she pointed them towards had a healthy amount of storage space, because Harry tended to purchase food like she was expecting a nuclear winter to occur in the next three months.

Louis kept a hand against Harry’s lower back as she pushed the cart slowly up and down the aisles, browsing just as much as she was searching for the items that they already knew they needed. Louis indulged her, wanting to bask in her good mood for the time being without doing anything to potentially disturb it.

They grabbed frozen yogurts after checking out—Louis’s chocolate and vanilla, while Harry got a vanilla yogurt with mixed berries. She managed to get a good dollop of the bright red syrup on her nose while eating it at the tiny little food court table that they’d parked their full cart next to; Louis took one look at her and quickly leaned over to lick it off with the tip of his tongue before kissing her full on the mouth.

There was a bittersweet feeling in knowing that Louis could kiss Harry whenever and wherever he wanted without having to worry about someone telling them they were disgusting for doing it, or to ‘think of the children’. Louis was glad that all that was behind them now, but it didn’t erase just how much Harry had struggled in every aspect of her life to get to this point.

That was why the Pride thing had bothered him so much, he realized later in the car. Harry’s hardships were all a lot less visible now than they used to be, but that didn’t make them any less of a reality for her.

Louis ended up finally RSVPing to Cara’s party on Facebook while Harry made dinner for them later that evening. They were among the last of their friends to do it from what Louis could tell, but it didn’t appear that Taylor was planning to attend this year, so that was one less thing they had to worry about.

With that taken care of, Louis abandoned his laptop and sacked out horizontally on the couch, pulling out his phone instead to text Zayn the details of the plan he’d come up with to make Harry feel a little more comfortable while they were at the parade.

For once in his life, Zayn actually replied to the texts within a reasonable amount of time, expressing his and Gigi’s approval and suggesting a good time for Louis to come pick them up.

“Zayn said he’s cool with it!” Louis shouted over the sound of the onions sizzling in the bottom of the pan that had rapidly filled the living room.

Harry poked her head around the wall separating the living room from the kitchen. “Cool with what?” she asked with a confused little frown.

“The Pride thing,” Louis answered. “You splitting off with Gigi?”

“Oh!” Harry turned bright red as she realized what Louis was talking about. “I mean—it would have been fine if we’d gone together,” she said, already backtracking even though Louis had gone through the trouble of making the arrangements they’d agreed to so that she would feel more comfortable attending. “I feel bad that they have to change everything around because of me.”

“It’s fine, Harry,” Louis insisted with a slow sigh. “It’s not a big deal, really. They’re both fine with it, okay? All four of us will probably be together the whole time anyway.”

“Yeah, I guess so,” Harry replied, still with a slight frown plastered across her face.

She still had a few misgivings about the whole plan a week later when Louis was helping her pick an outfit, and by that point, Louis really couldn’t tell if she was coming up with excuses to bail on purpose or if it was just a subconscious thing borne out of the insecurity she couldn’t seem to shake. Louis couldn’t help but blame himself in some small way for the way she was feeling, too. Maybe if he’d been less vocal in the past about mocking anyone at Pride that he’d perceived (perhaps mistakenly) as cis and heterosexual, Harry wouldn’t be so nervous about being judged.

But then again, maybe it wouldn’t have made a difference either way. Harry had always cared far too deeply about other people’s opinions, even when she desperately tried to pretend that she didn’t.

“How’s this?” Harry asked as she layered a soft pink sundress over her pajamas, twisting and turning as she waited for Louis to give his opinion on what was probably the tenth thing she’d held up since this whole process had begun nearly an hour ago.

Louis raised his eyebrows and sighed. “They’re all fine,” he said as kindly as he could manage. “Do you want me to pick something at random?”

He’d meant it sincerely, but Harry tossed him a dirty glare as she threw the dress back down onto the bed with the rest of the clothes she’d held up for assessment before ultimately discarding once she didn’t get the desired reaction from Louis.

“I don’t understand what you want from me,” Louis said helplessly.

“I want to wear something that’ll get your dick hard,” Harry mumbled under her breath as she turned back to her closet once again.

“Oh,” Louis said dumbly. He watched her rifle through everything for a moment before continuing. “The less you wear the better, then, in that case,” he confessed.

Harry glanced over her shoulder at him and lifted an eyebrow. “You want me to do the whole straight girl on spring break look?” she asked with a dubious expression.

Louis shrugged. “Not if you’d be uncomfortable doing it,” he told her. “But it wouldn’t hurt the cause, honestly.”

Once Harry had come clean about her motives, it was easy for her to settle on a cropped yellow halter top—no bra underneath, her nipples very obviously visible through the paper-thin fabric—coupled with a pair of white denim shorts that Louis knew he wouldn’t have to work very hard to peel off once they had a moment alone at the party. She probably wouldn’t get wet enough for an actual quickie, but getting Harry off with his fingers in the bathroom or some secluded corner of the condo was practically tradition at this point.

Once Harry was dressed, Louis helped her finish getting ready by doing her nails and braiding her hair, something that thankfully ended up being a lot simpler than the process of helping Harry choose an outfit.

By some miracle, they actually made it to Zayn and Gigi’s apartment on time, and from there it was a relatively quick drive to their usual parking spot in Long Beach nearly a mile out from the site of the actual parade. They did a quick seat swap when they arrived at the apartment; Harry climbing into the back with Gigi while Zayn sat up front with Louis, but while the girls chattered away animatedly over the sound of the radio playing, Zayn and Louis barely exchanged a single word as they crawled down a series of ever-narrower streets in search of their destination.

Despite the stereotypical sluttiness of Harry’s final outfit (as well as the equally revealing and far more elaborate ensemble Gigi had donned), all of them had taken care to wear sensible walking shoes for their trek down Ocean Boulevard to where the parade was supposed to start. As expected, Harry immediately began humming Ocean Avenue under her breath as they walked—no matter how many times Louis insisted that it wasn’t even the right street name, she couldn’t be stopped.

Harry made it through three renditions of the song before they got close enough to the crowds that the sound of her voice was drowned out. At that point, Louis slipped out from the middle of the group and moved over to stand next to Zayn on the other end, leaving Harry and Gigi to close the gap between them. Harry looked over at Louis with a tiny frown as she laced her fingers between Gigi’s, but her expression rapidly brightened as soon as the festivities ahead came into focus.

“Should we pretend to kiss each other?” Zayn joked as he and Louis followed their respective girlfriends into the crowd.

Louis looked over at him, expression deadpan, and mimed gagging himself with a finger.

Zayn laughed loudly enough that Harry looked over with a questioning expression, but Louis just shook his head. They were in the thick of it now, with Gigi standing up on her tiptoes as she tried to look for the rest of her friends, and the joke wasn’t funny enough to warrant Louis fighting his way through the maelstrom to try and yell an explanation into Harry’s ear. The Long Beach parade might have been more lowkey than its mainstream LA counterpart, but it was still a busy, bustling event, and Louis could barely hear himself think.

“You’re not my type,” Louis shouted at Zayn instead.

Zayn continued laughing as they wound their way further into the crowd. He turned a few paces in, grinning back at Louis as they fought to keep from being compressed by the mass of bodies pressing in on them. “No one’s your type anymore,” he shot back. “You stopped having one the day you started dating Harry.”

Louis mulled that over as they tried to make their way over to the girls, who had all but disappeared in their own search for the rest of the group. Honestly, Zayn kind of had a point. Louis couldn’t even remember the last time he’d appreciated anyone aesthetically aside from Harry, and he certainly hadn’t been overcome by the desire to fuck random attractive strangers that had plagued him periodically all throughout his first year of college.

In stark contrast, Louis knew that Harry found virtually everyone attractive, from Zayn—who she still half-hated—to random models on the covers of magazines at the doctor’s office. That was just one of her quirks, though, and it wasn’t something that bothered Louis in the slightest. They might have been polar opposites in a lot of ways, but they fit together just right, and that was the only thing that actually mattered at the end of the day.

“Can you see them still?” Louis asked Zayn as they continued pushing through to the other side of the building crowd. He craned his head to get a better look around, but he couldn’t make out anything amongst the sea of spray-tanned flesh surrounding them.

“They’re going to meet us at the bus stop on Cherry after step-off,” Zayn pointed out. “It’ll be fine.”

Louis nodded, but he was a bit more downtrodden than usual when the parade finally began with Harry still nowhere in sight. He wasn’t too worried about her safety, per se, but he couldn’t deny that he felt a surge of relief upon seeing her come walking up afterward to the agreed-upon meeting place, surrounded not only by Gigi but Cara and the rest of their friends as well.

“You have fun?” Louis asked as he pulled her into a hug once she’d crossed over to his side of the street.

Harry nodded enthusiastically. “We managed to actually get near the front this time,” she told him. “I might actually be in the pictures on the website for once.” She rolled her eyes with a lopsided smile and slid her hand back into Louis’s where it belonged. “You have your wallet, right?” she asked.

Louis nodded, pulling Harry along with the others as they made their way down the street to the park where all the booths and stages had been set up for the day.

“Can you buy me some funnel cake?” Harry continued. She squeezed Louis’s hand in hers as if to emphasize the importance of the question. “I’m starving.”

“I told you to eat breakfast,” Louis retorted automatically.

“I didn’t have time!”

“Because you spent an hour trying to find something to wear.”

“Can you two shut up?” Zayn cut in as he whirled around to face them, walking backwards all the while to keep up with Gigi and the others as he stared at Harry and Louis with his eyebrows raised. “I’ll buy her the damn funnel cake if it’s that big a deal.”

“It’s fine,” Louis said through a sigh. “I’ll get her the funnel cake.”

“Thank you, darling,” Harry said with a saccharine smile.

“You’re welcome, baby,” Louis replied with just as much faux sweetness before grabbing Harry and spinning her around in a circle, cutting off her whooping laugh with a wet kiss that had not only Zayn but Cara and the rest of their friends groaning for them to cut it out.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Pride was always an all-day affair that extended from the Parade in the morning to the musical performances in the early evening, followed by an hour-long drive through the city up to Cara’s condo, where the real festivities finally took place shortly after dark.

Harry was already tipsy by the time they walked in the door thanks to two frozen margaritas in the park that she’d somehow managed to acquire free of charge from the lesbians working the booth. Louis assumed she hadn’t even had to try; Harry was so naturally charming that both bartenders had probably just shoved the drinks into her hands with no questions asked.

As a result, Harry had become so handsy on the walk back to the car that she’d been banished to the backseat, with Gigi fighting valiantly to keep her from distracting Louis while he drove.

She wasn’t any better when they finally arrived, her arms looped around Louis’s neck as she stumbled along, sloppily laying kisses against Louis’s throat in between greeting every familiar face with a blinding smile and a drunken ‘hello’.

Louis didn’t think about the outcome of Harry’s inebriation and her newfound exhibitionism until she managed to take her shirt off in the middle of the kitchen after spilling a drink on it while half the party was watching. She was well on her way to shimmying out of her shorts too when Louis managed to pin her hands to the counter while pleading with his eyes for help from Cara, who was sitting back against the island laughing her ass off at the whole situation with a beer in her hand.

“Do you have a sweater or something?” Louis asked desperately. He was about five seconds away from taking off his own shirt and pulling it over Harry’s head, even though he knew she didn’t really give a flying fuck that she’d managed to flash her tits at almost all of their friends in the span of about five seconds.

Cara nodded, still laughing over the rim of her drink. “Yeah,” she said as she pushed off the countertop with a come-hither gesture. “This way.”

Louis strategically crossed his arms over Harry’s exposed breasts, ignoring the joking wolf whistles from the other partygoers as they followed Cara through the crowd, rolling his eyes when instead of grabbing for Harry, Zayn reached over to pinch Louis’s ass with a smug smirk as he passed by.

Things were quieter upstairs where Cara’s bedroom was located. She opened the door for them to go inside and pointed toward the closet on the opposite side of the room. “I don’t know if I have any pants that’ll fit,” she said, “but there should be plenty of shirts and stuff. Just make sure you get it back to me after the party, okay?”

Louis nodded.

Cara winked at him and then leaned in to kiss Harry on the mouth, a friendly gesture that was returned with far too much enthusiasm. “Whoa, tiger,” Cara said, laughing, as she pulled back. “You’ve really gotta keep her on a shorter leash, Louis.”

Louis just shrugged. “I like her like this,” he said with a soft smile. He didn’t mind playing babysitter if it meant that Harry got to have a bit of uninhibited fun every once in a while.

“You’re a braver man than I,” Cara replied seriously. She pulled the door open and stepped halfway through. “Please don’t get any bodily fluids on my clothing,” she added quickly.

“I don’t—” Louis started to say, his mind racing for an excuse, but Cara just shook her head forebodingly.

“I know all about your little tradition,” she replied with a warning wag of her finger. “I’ve got eyes everywhere,” she added before slipping back out into the hallway and shutting the door behind her, giving Louis no further opportunity to explain himself.

Now that they were alone, Louis let go of Harry and watched her flop down onto the bed, her breasts drawing his eye as they followed the natural laws of gravity in response to her movements. “How drunk are you really?” he wondered. His suspicions had been raised when he realized she was moving up the staircase with far more grace than she should have possessed.

Harry gave a little shrug as she made a snow-angel against Cara’s duvet. “I may have played it up just a little,” she confessed. “I thought it’d be fun to show off.”

“You’ve had boobs for more than a year,” Louis reminded her.

“They weren’t as impressive back then.” Harry glanced down at them as she laid there, cupping them in her hands and squishing them together, as if they were a toy she’d only newly discovered. She looked up at Louis with a beseeching look. “Finger me?” she begged in a soft voice.

Louis sighed. “Only because you asked so nicely.”

It was a good thing that Harry’s halter top was already ruined, because it was the only thing that kept Cara’s duvet from bearing an unsightly stain once Louis had reduced Harry to sweaty, shivering mess with just his fingers, his mouth attached to her nipples in turn, biting at them, sucking them until she couldn’t take it anymore and finally shoved his head away with a guttural groan, her cunt clenching down weakly around him.

“You good, or do you need another?” Louis asked with a teasing smile as he pulled his fingers out of her and wiped them on the one square inch of Harry’s top that was still miraculously dry.

“Can’t move,” she replied, panting, an arm thrown over her eyes.

“You’re welcome,” Louis replied. He took a step back, discreetly adjusting himself in his jeans while Harry was too overwhelmed to notice. He didn’t want to pressure her into reciprocating instead of heading back out to enjoy the rest of the party, but even more than that, Louis wanted to wait until they got home, so he could fuck her properly. “Do you have a preference for any of this stuff?” he asked, thumbing through the racks of clothes hanging up in Cara’s closet.

“Just something warm,” Harry replied groggily. “It’s freezing in here.”

She’d been complaining about how hot it was downstairs the last time Louis remembered her mentioning the temperature, but he took it in stride and picked out an oversized crew-neck sweatshirt, figuring it would be long enough to help hide the liquor stain on her white shorts as well as providing something to cover up with before they went back and joined the others.

Harry barely moved except to sit up and lift her arms so that Louis could pull the sweatshirt onto her. She sleepily blinked up at him the whole time, looking so stupidly pretty that Louis couldn’t stare directly at her for more than a few seconds at a time as he helped her get dressed.

“Do you want to go home early?” he found himself asking once Harry finally stood up and started to twirl, the oversized sweater flying around her like a dress.

Harry paused, her head cocking to the side in consideration. “Sex?” she wondered.

Louis nodded. “Yeah,” he replied, mouth already dry. “Sex.”

By virtue of some sort of inexplicable pussy witchcraft that only Harry seemed to be capable of, she managed to get Louis to come inside her three times before they passed out in bed together. Throughout the whole session, she’d hardly moved except to circle her hips, grinding her clit against the palm of Louis’s hand in lieu of being able to do it against his stomach, the way she would have liked. It didn’t seem to matter much that Louis still couldn’t get his whole cock inside her—she was so hot and so tight that he felt like his brain was melting every second he spent with his dick in her pussy, and it wasn’t until the third orgasm that his cock finally went limp and showed no signs of returning to its former glory any time soon.

Harry was half-asleep by the third orgasm already, so Louis ducked down between her thighs and quickly finished her off before crawling back up to lay down next to her, taking only a second to toss the towel they’d put down beforehand onto the floor before turning off the bedside lamp. The other added benefit of regular sex was that Harry didn’t have to dilate nearly as often, which meant that once she’d come, Harry could go straight to sleep without a care in the world.

Louis watched her for as long as he could manage, but it had been a long day for him too, and he found himself drifting more quickly into unconsciousness than usual, Harry’s slumbering expression the last thing in his mind’s eye when his eyes finally slipped shut.

It was pitch black when Louis woke up, and it took him a few seconds to figure out just why that fact had stood out to him when he first opened his eyes. It came to him by degrees: gone were the tiny blips of light throughout the bedroom that assured himself and Harry that their devices were always on and charging, and the familiar, near-constant hum of the air-conditioning that kept their little casita from becoming stuffy and stagnant was now entirely absent.

The power was out, Louis realized.

Blackouts weren’t exactly uncommon in southern California, though, so now that Louis had determined the source of the wrongness he’d felt upon waking, he was completely content with crawling back under the covers and going to sleep once more.

That’s when he felt it.

Harry shot up in bed like she’d been spring-loaded, her hand shooting out to grab at Louis in the darkness. “What was that?” she hissed.

“Earthquake,” Louis mumbled into his pillow. He’d lived his whole life in California. The little ones didn’t exactly stress him out.

But then there was another, longer shudder, and this one was accompanied by the tell-tale clatter of all their unsecured belongings being knocked onto the floor. Including, Louis was devastated to realize, the TV monitor they’d inherited from Gemma’s last boyfriend but had put off securing to the wall like both of them knew they should have.

“Shit,” Louis muttered to himself. He started to climb out of bed, his eyes finally starting to adjust to the darkness, but Harry was faster.

Neither of them could see where their phones had landed, but there was a strip of light coming in from behind the blinds on the window, which was what Louis assumed Harry was heading for when she crossed in front of the bed, just an even darker shape silhouetted against dull blackness.

Once the blinds were open, it was a bit easier to see, and Louis was able to reach over and grab a flashlight from one of the drawers on the nightstand. He got up and quickly surveyed the damage throughout the room. The TV was destroyed, and they’d have a hell of a time cleaning it up, but Louis thought it could wait till morning, at least. Everything else in the room seemed to be more or less intact.

The cats were nowhere to be found amongst the wreckage, but Louis’s heartbeat didn’t settle until Harry managed to confirm that both were hidden underneath the bed. She was spooked, though, so Louis helped her put them both in their carriers for the moment while they surveyed the casita for any further damage.

Louis did a thorough sweep of the rest of the guest house while Harry used the flashlight on her phone to retrieve a few candles from the kitchen. When he walked back into the bedroom, she had already placed them in various surfaces and was just lighting the last one as Louis came up behind her to wrap his arms around her waist.

“Nice and romantic,” he joked.

Harry shook her head with a laugh. “Yeah, well, I figure I’m not going to be able to fall back asleep for at least an hour or so now.”

“Whatever will we do to pass the time,” Louis drawled.

“Well,” Harry said as she spun around to face him, her hands pressed with palms flat against his chest, “we don’t have a TV anymore, but I can think of some other things we could do to pass the time.”

“Oh yeah?”

Less than ten minutes later, Harry had Louis flat on his back, his cock wedged up inside her as she tried to work out a rhythm that wouldn’t make her wince every time he bottomed out inside her. Louis had to hand it to her—she was definitely determined.

They were understandably a bit distracted when the power finally came back on, but neither noticed the figure walking over from the main house toward their window until it was too late.

The sharp rap of knuckles against the glass almost made Harry jump out of her skin. Louis pulled the blanket up over her reflexively, but he knew as soon as he glanced through the window and spotted Anne’s face peering through that it was too late to feign any sort of innocence about the situation that they’d found themselves in.

Harry carefully extricated herself from Louis and started to get up, but Louis put out a hand to stop her. “I’ll take care of it,” he said before jumping out of bed and hastily pulling on a pair of boxers, taking care to tuck his still (mostly) erect penis into the waistband so as not to scar Harry’s mom any further.

Once he was moderately dressed, Louis rushed over to the front door to meet Anne on the tiny little porch outside. “What’s up?” he asked a bit breathlessly, pretending he couldn’t see the mortification etched into every line on Anne’s face as she stared up at him.

“I was just coming by to check on you,” she told him, “but you both seem to be alive and well, so….” She started to take a step back and then paused, her eyes alighting on the window through which she’d first seen them. “Is that…should you be doing that sort of thing?” she asked uncertainly.

Louis could feel his face warming. He couldn’t believe they were really having this conversation. He didn’t try to put on a naïve façade; he knew that would only make it more awkward if Anne were forced to explain herself in more detail. “The doctor said she was okayed for—” He couldn’t bring himself to say the words ‘vaginal sex’ in front of Harry’s mother and quickly changed tracks. “There’s no risk of infection after two months,” he continued, “and we’re being careful, so.”

Anne nodded. “Right,” she replied, still looking as though all the life had been sucked out of her. “Well, I guess I don’t have to worry about her accidentally getting pregnant, at least.”

That pulled a laugh out of Louis, and Anne ended up joining in, leaving the two of them standing there on the doorstep laughing about a bad joke in the middle of the night, neither of them pausing to take a breath until Harry finally wandered over to find out just what the hell was going on.

“You okay, babe?” Anne said as she held out her arms toward Harry, who eased into them without question, tucking her head into the crook of her mother’s shoulder as though she were a good fifteen years younger.

“I’m fine,” Harry mumbled against her neck. “Just couldn’t sleep.” Her cheeks were a bit pink, but neither she nor Anne made mention of the scene that they both knew Anne had borne witness to when she’d walked over.

“You could come sleep in the house,” Anne offered. “I don’t mind making up the bed in the spare room if you’d be more comfortable in there for the night.”

Harry didn’t seem as spooked by the earthquake as she had been on past occasions, but Louis knew she really didn’t like them and had never quite managed to get used to them despite their frequency. The main house was a bit more structurally sound than the casita, and if there was a larger aftershock, Harry was less likely to be disturbed by it if they were staying in the spare bedroom on the first floor.

“That would be great, Anne,” Louis answered for her. “Thanks.”

It was another hour or so before they finally got themselves and the cats settled in again, especially since there was no light to go by except the candles that Anne kept on hand in every room.

Harry gave Louis a look as she climbed underneath the covers. “If you make another joke about the candles being romantic…” she warned.

“What, you don’t want to fuck in your mom’s house with no lock on the bedroom door and the cats hiding under the bed?” Louis joked.

Harry glared at him as she waited for him to join her in bed, but she didn’t have a chance to come up with an adequate retort before the walls abruptly shuddered around them. “Goddammit,” she hissed, pulling up the covers to her chin and gritting her teeth.

Louis paused next to the last of the candles he’d been blowing out in preparation for going back to sleep. “Want me to leave these for a little bit?” he asked her.

Harry hesitated before shaking her head. “Just hurry and get in,” she said, sounding a tad panicked now that she’d realized the aftershocks might not be over with after all.

Louis quickly extinguished the remaining candles before climbing into bed beside her, snaking an arm under the covers to pull her in tight against his side. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “I don’t mind staying up with you.” Thankfully, they’d both taken that Monday off of work in preparation for any hangovers that their Pride celebrations might have produced.

“I’m fine,” Harry protested weakly.

There was a beat of silence, then another.

“You sure you don’t want to have sex until you fall asleep?” Louis double-checked, still (mostly) joking.

Harry laughed softly under her breath. “You want to rub my pussy for comfort or something?”

“I’d be willing to try,” Louis told her.

“This is fine,” she said as she snuggled in close, tucking her head against Louis’s neck and breathing deeply in and out through her nose.

Louis settled for sliding his hand under her pajama top, placing it over her belly button and tracing slow circles in time with each breath, matching his to hers until they both calmed down enough to drift off. There were no more tangible aftershocks that night. They both slept peacefully until the next morning.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

“I’ve been thinking about labels some more,” Louis said slowly. He folded and unfolded the tiny piece of plastic wrapping that Harry’s cinnamon peppermint had come out of rather than looking up to meet Dr. Hawkins’s terrifyingly perceptive gaze. He could feel Harry’s eyes on him as well, and that didn’t help him feel any better either.

“And?” Dr. Hawkins finally prompted.

Louis looked up with a soft sigh. “I was thinking about following Harry’s lead, I guess?” he replied hesitantly. “Maybe just telling people that I’m queer if it comes up, and if it doesn’t—” He shrugged, trying to convince himself just as much as Dr. Hawkins and Harry of his own ambivalence towards the whole situation.

Dr. Hawkins’s expression brightened immediately. “That sounds like an effective compromise and a step in the right direction,” she said with a note of obvious approval. “Harry, do you have any thoughts about this?”

Harry just nodded; her face taut with some unreadable emotion. “Yeah,” she added dully. “Um, yeah, I agree.”

It wasn’t until the car ride home from Dr. Hawkins’s office that Louis learned why she’d reacted so strangely when she’d been put on the spot.

“I’m really sorry for putting you through all this,” Harry told Louis, a morose look tugging at her features. She sighed and stared out at the passing cars through her window for a moment before continuing. “It doesn’t really seem fair that you have to change everything because of me.”

It was a far cry from the arguments she used to lay at Louis’s feet regarding his sexuality; he wondered what had changed for her that she’d begun to view things a bit more pessimistically. Louis had expected her to be ecstatic that he wasn’t still clinging to the irrelevant parts of his past any longer just because he’d found comfort in them once upon a time.

“You don’t have to feel sorry about anything,” Louis assured her. “Pride just kind of put things into perspective for me, I guess. Like…I don’t know, I guess I was worried deep down that I wouldn’t belong there anymore either now that I can’t say that I’m gay anymore, but being around Zayn and Gigi made me think about it a little differently.” He glanced over at Harry, finding her still staring out the window with her head propped up against her hand. “And you know that if I didn’t want to deal with all your baggage, I wouldn’t have stuck around this long, right?” he continued in a more jovial tone. “I mean come on, the sex might be good, but it’s not _that_ good.”

The lighthearted mockery finally pulled Harry’s gaze back over to Louis as she turned her head to roll her eyes at him. “Right,” she replied sarcastically. “What was that thing you said about seeing God the last time I let you come inside me without a condom?”

Louis went bright red, his fingers tightening on the wheel. He’d forgotten about that comment, but it had definitely happened, especially since they’d been using pre-lubed condoms more and more since figuring out that it was easier and less messy to do so whenever they wanted to go multiple rounds. Not to mention Harry’s present paranoia about disturbing the delicate pH balance of her vaginal flora or something. Louis really didn’t know what she was talking about, but as a result, he usually only forewent the condom on his second or third orgasm, something that had somehow become a regular thing as of late. He knew it wouldn’t last, but he was enjoying the uptick in his libido for the time being.

“I can’t believe I finally understand what it means to be pussy whipped,” Louis said, tingeing his voice with a bit of theatrical awe.

Harry shook her head and laughed. “Shut up,” she replied automatically before softening her expression and adding a quieter, “Thank you, though. Really.”

“Love you,” Louis replied in lieu of the more traditional response. Harry was halfway through her ‘love you too’ when Louis caught sight of a David’s Bridal sign off to the side of the road, setting off a row of dominoes in his brain that eventually led to…. “Shit.”

Louis hit the blinker and jammed into the left turn lane, hitting the brakes just in time to make it before they would have blown through the light. Harry was thrown forward, her palms smacking against the dash as she looked over in surprise and alarm at Louis, whose own heart was probably racing just as much as hers.

“What the hell are you doing?” she demanded.

Louis stared up at the red arrow in front of them, contemplating the best way to explain his realization without sending Harry into a fit of pique. It was probably unavoidable, he told himself, so he sighed and opened his mouth to give her the bad news.

“So you remember Lottie’s bridal shower that I told you about?” Louis said, wincing preemptively.

“Yes….”

“I may have forgotten that it was today,” Louis finished in a small voice.

A solid five seconds of silence followed his shameful admission.

“You _forgot_?” Harry finally responded, her voice as shrill as it could possibly get—which was always a bad sign.

“Well—um, yes,” Louis replied lamely. Louis truly hadn’t anticipated facing the full force of Harry’s wrath today when he’d woken up that morning to get ready for their therapy appointment, but now here he was, sitting at a stoplight about to make an illegal U-turn so they could make a quick stop at Target to pick up something for Lottie’s party, about to be berated because it had completely slipped his mind to create a reminder for the shower in his phone.

“When is it?” Harry asked, her tone dangerously flat.

Louis glanced over at the clock on the car stereo. “Uh…like two hours from now?” he told her. “We have time to get a gift before I drop you off, at least.”

“What?” Harry shrieked. She turned bodily in her seat, managing to trigger the seatbelt locking mechanism in the process and nearly strangling herself with it. “No, we have to go home first! I’m not going over there like this!”

Louis glanced over at her in confusion. She looked fine. She’d showered and dressed for her appointment in jeans and a nice blouse. He didn’t see what the problem was.

“Can’t you just—” The rest of his question was drowned out by the sound of the person in the car behind him laying into their horn, signaling that the light had finally turned green. “Goddammit,” Louis muttered to himself as he whipped around the median, ignoring the ensuing chorus of even more angry honks that followed the action.

Harry didn’t say a word about it, her stony silence extending beyond even the doors to the Target, though she’d followed Louis inside instead of just staying in the car like he thought she might. It wasn’t until it became clear that Louis had no idea what the fuck he was looking for as he trawled the aisles, though, that she finally spoke up.

“There’s no vibrators at Target,” Harry said matter-of-factly.

Louis spun around to face her, glancing sideways at the passersby who were giving them weird looks after overhearing Harry’s statement before pulling her into the nearest aisle. Which happened to be full of maternity bras, and likewise, more than a few pregnant women, because luck wasn’t on Louis’s side today. “You weren’t seriously going to get my sister a vibrator, were you?” he asked in a low tone.

“I was considering it,” Harry replied. “Straight girls need all the help they can get.”

Louis just stared at her for a few seconds, blinking slowly. “We’re getting something _here_ ,” he insisted. He felt a bit faint just thinking about the implications of Harry’s answer.

Harry shrugged as though it was no big deal for her to adapt to that restriction. “We should go this way, then,” she said before leading Louis back to the women’s clothing section they’d just walked through.

They ended up purchasing two very nice satin sleep robes for Lottie in addition to a forty-piece glassware set from the wedding registry. All in all, it was way more money than Louis would have preferred to spend, but it was his sister’s wedding, after all. And Louis was afraid to say anything that might upset Harry again after the revelation that had taken place in the car.

He shouldn’t have even bothered, though, because Harry immediately laid into him again with no provocation whatsoever the second that they pulled out of the parking lot and set off for home. Louis gave her a scathing look as she reamed him out for not even giving her the time and date in the first place so she could have made a reminder instead—something she absolutely wouldn’t have remembered to do either, and they both knew it.

“Do you want to keep yelling at me or would you rather we get home in one piece?” Louis asked, his tone deadly serious now. But he really, really, _really_ didn’t need the added distraction of Harry reading him the Riot Act while he battled midday LA traffic for the next twenty or so minutes.

Harry’s mouth snapped shut as her lips twisted into a scowl. Louis knew that not letting her vent would likely put her in a worse mood later on. But hey, at least she wasn’t chewing him out anymore.

Harry maintained her commitment to giving Louis the cold shoulder once they arrived home, and after she disappeared into their bedroom—after locking the door behind her—Louis didn’t see her again until after she’d showered and changed into a patterned sundress, cardigan, and a pair of worn leather Chelsea boots.

“Ready?” Louis asked when she finally appeared in the living room with her purse slung over one shoulder.

Harry nodded and said nothing.

The drive to the address in Santa Monica that Lottie had given everyone via text message (rather than something more convenient, like a Facebook event) was accompanied by the same tense silence, which somehow managed to drown out even the music playing on the radio at mid-volume. Thankfully, traffic was kinder to them on the way to Lottie and Tommy’s short-term rental, and they didn’t end up stuck in the car together any longer than they needed to be.

Unfortunately, Louis driving a good forty-five minutes out of the way to drop Harry off at an event that was only supposed to last three hours at the most meant that there was no point in driving all the way back home just to turn back around again an hour later to come pick her up. And since it was his own sister anyway, Louis had decided to just hang out in the kitchen and wait out the festivities with Lottie’s boyfriend instead of making things even more awkward by interrupting whatever the girls were up to.

Tommy’s career as a semi-professional athlete based in San Diego meant that Louis rarely got to see his sister, whether it was because she was traveling with Tommy’s team or simply because it was difficult for Louis to make enough time to justify driving more than two hours for a day trip. And it wasn’t like they had the space in their apartment for Louis and Harry to spend the night.

All that meant that Louis had spent even less time around his sister’s boyfriend—now fiancé—than Lottie herself, even though they’d been dating longer even than Harry and Louis had been officially together.

To Louis’s knowledge, Harry had never met Tommy even once, which he suspected was the reason Tommy kept looking at her like he was trying to figure out who she was while the girls loaded up plates and grabbed drinks from the fridge before going into the other room.

Louis was perfectly content to sit on his phone in silence with Tommy in the kitchen while the party raged on the other side of the wall, but apparently, Tommy wasn’t.

“That’s your girlfriend?” he asked.

Louis was grateful that he had the sense to keep his voice down at least. “Yep,” he replied easily. He hoped (for Tommy’s sake) that that would be the end of it.

It wasn’t.

“I thought Lottie said you were gay,” Tommy continued, the crease between his brows deepening in confusion.

Louis sighed inwardly. He’d had this conversation before, and he knew he’d have it again, but it never got any easier. And unfortunately, the fact that Lottie hadn’t seen fit to let Tommy in on the fact that Harry was trans made Louis’s life all the more difficult in that regard.

“Yeah, well….” He hated giving the impression that it was possible to magically become ‘not gay’ one day, but life was complicated. Shit happened. “I’m not really using specific labels currently,” he replied vaguely. It felt weird to say after so many years in which all he’d had to say to people was that he was gay and that was it, but there was some relief in not having to spill his whole life story as well as Harry’s, too.

“Oh, okay,” Tommy replied. “I mean, that’s cool.” He continued staring past Louis into the other room, squinting hard like he was still trying to figure something out. “How long have you guys been together?” he asked casually.

Louis wasn’t sure why, but the question almost felt like a trap. “About two and a half, three years,” he replied.

Tommy’s frown deepened. “Really?”

Louis nodded, not sure where this was going.

“Who was the guy that helped Lottie move into my place, then?” Tommy asked. “I remember your mom telling me that he was your boyfriend.” Tommy’s eyes suddenly widened, like he’d realized that he was maybe catching Louis in a lie without really meaning to. “Shit, sorry, you don’t have to explain this to me, I didn’t mean to like, imply anything, I was just….”

“It’s fine,” Louis replied hastily. “You’re not…sorry, I’m just trying to do the math in my head real quick.”

Louis’s brain went into overdrive trying to figure out exactly what Tommy was referring to. He vaguely remembered Lottie asking him to help her move in, but he hadn’t been able to go with her and his mom because of work. Harry…Harry _had_ offered, but Louis hadn’t really thought until just now about the fact that it meant she would have met Tommy before her transition. Oops.

Now Louis wasn’t sure what to say. Because Lottie had clearly shown a preference for keeping Tommy in the dark regarding Harry’s history, and that made Louis wary, even though Tommy hadn’t shown any signs so far of reacting badly to the news. Although, if he did, that would be Lottie’s problem, not Louis’s. And it wasn’t like Louis was springing it on him completely out of the blue. Tommy had asked, after all.

Still, Louis couldn’t stop himself from contorting his face into a slight grimace as he opened his mouth to reply. “That was Harry,” he explained, gesturing to the other room where the girl in question was still sitting in a circle with the others, oblivious to the fact that she was being discussed at all. Louis would have lied if he’d thought the situation warranted it, but they’d discussed this sort of thing coming up before before, and Harry had made it clear a number of times that she was okay with her history being disclosed so long as it was actually necessary to clear up a misunderstanding like the one Louis had found himself in now. “She just looked a little different back then,” Louis added with a wry smile.

Louis watched as realization slowly dawned on Tommy’s face. “Oh,” he replied, his cheeks going bright red. “Oh, sorry.”

Louis couldn’t help but laugh at the other man’s embarrassment as he hopped off the bar stool and made his way around the counter to get at the liquor in the freezer. He had a feeling he and Harry would be here a while after the bridal shower ended, so if he got a little drunk in the meantime, there’d be time to sober up again before they left. “It’s cool, man,” Louis assured Tommy as he patted him on the back placatingly. “You got any Red Bull?”

“The pantry, I think,” Tommy said as he gestured to the door in question.

Louis made them both drinks before sitting back down again next to Tommy at the counter, spacing out a little as he stared into the other room, watching Harry laugh along with his sister and her friends as they opened gifts.

“Three years is a long time,” Tommy said out of nowhere.

“Hmm?” Louis turned to face him with his drink still pressed to his lips, his eyebrows raised in question.

Tommy nodded toward Harry. “Three years is a long time to be with someone,” he elaborated in a low tone. “That’s when I started thinking about asking Lottie about getting married.”

“Ah.” Louis could easily see what Tommy was getting at, and it wasn’t exactly a difficult question to answer, but Louis still mulled it over for a long moment before responding. “I mean, we’ve talked about it before,” he replied vaguely. “We’re actually starting to look for a house soon, so that’s a pretty big step.”

“Are you guys not really the traditional white wedding type?” Tommy guessed. “You could always just make a quick trip to city hall just to make it official if you’d rather not make a big to-do out of it. Honestly, I probably would have done that if Lottie hadn’t insisted on the whole three-ring circus.”

Louis shook his head emphatically. “No, I am,” he said. It wasn’t a lie in any sense of the word. Even in Louis’s wilder days, when he’d barely taken the time to learn the names of the guys he’d spent the night with, he’d always known he would end up settling down with someone and having a big wedding with all the bells and whistles and accoutrements that came with it. “We both are. It’s just…I don’t know. I guess it’s never really felt like the right time to ask.” With Harry’s transition hanging over their heads for the last couple years, plus Harry’s struggles post-surgery, it just seemed like too much to add the stress of planning an elaborate proposal and then a wedding on top of it all. It didn’t help that they were practically broke, too, even before taking on a mortgage.

Tommy laughed lightly under his breath as Louis continued to stare out at Harry.

“What?” Louis asked, turning his head to look over at the other man again as he tried to figure out what he’d said that could be construed as funny.

Tommy shook his head with a smile. “It’s never gonna feel like the right time, man,” he said as he clapped a hand on Louis’s shoulder. “The right time is whenever you grow a pair and finally decide to ask her.”


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis woke Harry by degrees, his head buried beneath the covers between her parted legs, licking gently along the creases of her thighs as she started to stir, before finally moving his mouth to suck hard on her clit when he’d determined that she was awake enough to appreciate it.

Harry shot upright, her thighs clamping down hard on either side of Louis’s head as she let out a loud gasp. “Fuck,” she said, panting hard as she wound her fingers into Louis’s hair, weakly pulling at him as though torn between wanting him to stop and desperately wanting him to keep going.

Louis drew back with a grin and stared up at her. “Good morning,” he said chipperly.

“Morning,” Harry replied as she blinked away the last remnants of sleep. “What are you doing?”

“Thought I’d try to get you off like this,” Louis told her, “before we have sex.” They indulged in fully penetrative morning sex whenever they had the time, because it meant that Harry had to dilate a little less often, something she still hated doing even though Louis couldn’t really see what the big difference was.

Harry sighed and laid back down against the pillows. “It’s not going to happen,” she warned Louis in a dubious tone, which was exactly the response Louis had expected considering she’d never been able to come without some sort of stimulation against her prostate so far.

Louis shrugged. “Let’s give it fifteen minutes?” he suggested hopefully. It wasn’t even so much the prospect of making her come as it was the fact that Louis just really liked going down on her. He’d enjoyed eating her out before her surgery, too; Harry’s brand-new vagina just made the whole experience a lot more convenient.

“Fine,” Harry replied, her voice heavy with exasperation, like it was some kind of hardship to lie there while Louis licked her pussy for fifteen minutes straight.

Louis didn’t manage to make Harry come with just his mouth, but he did get her pretty damn close a couple times, and when he finally got himself hard enough to push into her, that was all it took to send her over the edge, her legs clamped tight around his waist as she trembled frantically under him.

“Another one?” Louis checked, just to make sure she was okay with it. Sometimes she got a little oversensitive afterwards and needed a break before they continued, especially if they’d been heavy on the foreplay first.

This time, Harry nodded silently, her mouth open and her eyes squeezed shut. She had both hands fisted into the pillows while Louis rocked into her, fucking her as roughly as he dared while still trying to keep from going too deep. Louis was pretty sure he was managing to fit more of his cock inside her now when they fucked than they had the very first time, but it was hard to say for sure without breaking out an actual ruler to keep track.

Harry came again only a few seconds before Louis reached his own peak, her body lying limp under him as he pulled almost all the way out before fucking into her again.

“You okay?” he asked, barely getting the words out now that he’d come inside her and rolled over onto his side of the bed again.

“Tired,” Harry replied sleepily.

Louis glanced over at the alarm clock on the nightstand, doing the mental math necessary to calculate just how much time they had left before they needed to get ready to meet Ruth. “Don’t fall asleep again,” he warned, because he knew if Harry was left to her own devices on the weekend, she’d manage to stay in bed until three in the afternoon. “We should probably get up and take a shower soon.”

Harry grumbled something unintelligible into her pillow before rolling over to face Louis with a frown. “Maybe we should cancel all the viewings,” she said as she snuggled closer to Louis. “We could stay in bed and keep fucking instead.”

“As tempting as that sounds…” Louis replied, “it would probably be better if we had an actual house to fuck in at some point in the future.”

Harry let out a dramatic sigh and shoved back the covers. “You don’t have to be right _all_ the time,” she complained as she climbed out of bed, fully naked, before heading into the bathroom to start the shower.

“I’m not!” Louis called after her.

Once they were both in the shower, Harry ended up attempting valiantly to get Louis off again by deepthroating him, but it ended up being an even worse failure than his own earlier endeavor.

“It’s not going to happen,” Louis told Harry sadly, using her own words against her as she tried her best to get him hard again.

“I hate penises,” she muttered to herself as Louis helped her stand up again.

“No, you don’t,” Louis replied with a laugh.

“Okay, maybe I don’t,” Harry said, bending over to grab the shampoo and squirting a bit into Louis’s hands for him to put in her hair. “But it’s annoying that they don’t always do what you want them to.”

Louis couldn’t disagree with that point. He shared her frustration sometimes, even though in this case, he felt relatively sated by the sex they’d had before getting in the shower together. “I’ll buy you a strap-on,” he promised her, before realizing how it sounded. “I mean, I’ll buy me a strap-on?”

Harry snorted. “No, I like the first idea better,” she decided. “Then I can peg you for real and we’ll actually be like every other twenty-something heterosexual couple in LA.”

“I hate you,” Louis told her.

“Love you, too.”

They were only a few minutes late to their first viewing after it was all said and done, but Louis didn’t feel so bad about their tardiness when they walked into the place to discover that the actual interior in no way matched the photos from the listing Ruth had sent them.

Harry walked through the narrow hallways with a look of clear repulsion as she tried to keep from touching any of the wallpaper, stained and peeling away to reveal nothing any cleaner beneath. They only made it through about half of the house before Harry couldn’t take anymore of it. Louis lingered only a little longer, enough to discover the dead roaches in the bathtub in the master suite before he, too, had to tap out and run outside to join her.

“I’m really sorry about that,” Ruth apologized, her face bright red as she flipped through her binder to write something down before hastily shoving it back inside her bag.

“It’s fine,” Louis reassured her. It wasn’t like either of them blamed Ruth for the fact that the listing on the website had been so deceptive. “Four more, right?”

Ruth nodded. “That’s about all I could find in the area for your budget, but if you don’t find something you like around here, we can look a little farther out.”

Louis was really hoping they could avoid that if at all possible, because he wanted Harry to be within walking distance of both her job at the bakery as well as Anne’s house. Not to mention the fact that Louis liked where they lived, liked that it felt like it was a little less LA than the rest of the city metro, that they could walk outside and see trees and not have to crawl through miles of standstill traffic to access a bit of nature—although Harry was still a bit on the fence about Louis’s plan to start hiking regularly.

“Well, as long as the rest of them aren’t like this, I’m sure we’ll be fine,” Louis said with a forced smile. Unfortunately, Ruth was about as new to real estate as he and Harry were to homebuying, which meant that a few hiccups here and there were to be expected. One look over at Harry told him that if they did encounter a similar situation at the next house, Harry would probably demand to be taken home right then and there. Especially if there were more cockroaches.

The second house they visited was clean and featured the same décor as the photos they’d looked at, but it was nearly as small as the casita they were currently living in, and for the price the seller was asking for, Louis would have liked a bit more space. And he really didn’t want to have to find a new house in the event that they had kids at some point in the next ten years.

The third was Harry’s favorite by far, but that wasn’t saying a whole lot after the fiasco of the first and the disappointment of the second. Louis couldn’t deny that it was a fairly nice place, however, although it certainly could use some touching up with new paint and new carpet, something that they could live with if they had to but wasn’t in their budget for the foreseeable future.

The fourth was when they both started to ease into the process, with Harry showing a little more confidence as she walked around without Ruth’s guidance for the first time since they’d started their spate of viewings.

“This feels so…normal,” Harry remarked as she and Louis inspected the bedrooms in the little bungalow located the closest to Anne’s house so far, just a few miles away down the nearest main road.

Ruth had gone outside to vape after being assured that they no longer needed her around to explain everything to Harry, but Louis certainly didn’t mind the few minutes of privacy to look the house over on his own without Ruth pointing out every asset and flaw that they needed to consider before making a decision.

Louis looked askance at Harry, who had her hand at her mouth and was chewing pensively at one of her painted nails. He gently reached over and pulled her hand away from her lips. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Why wouldn’t it feel normal?”

Harry shrugged and turned away to peer out the window in the master bedroom at the thick wall of trees encircling the tiny garden outside. “I guess I just thought I’d never really have something like this,” she admitted. “When I was younger it all seemed like a distant dream, you know? Like scaling Mount Everest or something. House, marriage, baby. I used to daydream about it, but it never felt real, I guess.”

Louis frowned as he stared at the back of her head. Harry didn’t often talk about her childhood, at least not in terms of her struggles after puberty, when she’d suddenly been thrust into a role in life that she didn’t want and didn’t know how to cope with. Abstractly, Louis knew that going through her teenage years must have been particularly difficult—god knows his own were even without the whole gender thing she’d had to wrestle with in addition to not being straight—but he’d never felt the need to ask her for details.

“If this is you hinting that I should propose right now,” Louis replied, trying to lighten the mood, “I must regretfully inform you that I haven’t bought a ring.” _Yet_ , he thought to himself without saying out loud. Though he’d been considering it a lot more seriously ever since his conversation with Tommy at Lottie’s bridal shower.

Harry whirled around with a smile playing at the corners of her lips. “I’d have to kill you if you spent our down payment money on a ring,” she replied.

Louis laughed. “And that’s exactly why I haven’t.” He leaned back against the wall and reached out his hand for Harry to take, pulling her in close when she did. “I know we’re doing things in the wrong order already,” he joked, “but we should probably wait on the baby until after we get the house and the marriage parts squared away.”

It was always a risk mentioning pregnancy stuff around her, but Louis had decided that if she was the one who had brought it up initially that it was probably safe enough to discuss without risking the possibility of tears being shed.

Harry rolled her eyes, confirming Louis’s suspicions that she was in the right mood to handle a bit of banter about baby-making. “We’ll see about that,” she replied, her gaze turning a bit dark as she looked directly into Louis’s eyes, and he shivered, knowing that this was definitely going to come up in the bedroom a bit later.

Just as the moment was starting to edge into something a little less than appropriate for a house viewing, Ruth came striding down the hallway toward them in a haze of faux-maple syrup scent that made Louis feel a bit nauseous.

“You guys ready to see the next one?” she asked, oblivious to the tension in their stances as they came apart.

Louis nodded and let their hands drop down between their bodies in a more acceptable form of PDA. “Lead the way,” he replied with a smile.

Harry waited until Ruth had turned around again before leaning over to whisper into Louis’s ear: “We’re not done discussing the baby thing.”

Louis was counting on it.

The final house was about on par with the fourth, which made their decision all the more difficult as they discussed it in the car on their way back to Anne’s. There were things they each liked about both houses; there were also things they both disliked. Neither were sure which to declare their favorite.

“We could toss a coin,” Louis suggested offhandedly as they pulled into their parking spot outside the gate.

“We’re not picking a house based on luck,” Harry countered. “We could just go for the cheaper one, and make an offer on the other one if we have to?”

Louis turned off the engine and the lights before twisting around in his seat to look at Harry. “I think we should go for the one with the bigger yard,” he said confidently.

“Why do we need a big yard?” Harry asked, confused.

Louis flicked his gaze downward, to where Harry’s hand was resting unconsciously over her stomach. Harry’s eyes followed his, and then her face lit up in realization.

Followed immediately by a groan as she leaned her head back against the headrest. “I promised Mom we’d eat dinner with her,” she whined.

“Oops.” Louis finally opened the car door, a bit disappointed that his plans for knocking Harry up—or pretending to anyway—were going to have to wait. “Rain check, then.”

Harry rolled her eyes at him as she climbed out of the car. Louis followed her into the casita, her shadow as she made sure the cats were both taken care of before heading over to the main house to help Anne with dinner.

Louis sat by in the kitchen while they worked, feeling a bit awkward about his lack of participation now that he was the only man in the house as well as the only person not helping with the food. But really—it was better for everyone that he didn’t help. Unfortunately, it meant he’d be doing the heavy lifting with the dishes afterward, and that meant he and Harry wouldn’t be getting into bed for another twenty minutes or so after finishing dinner, at least.

“How was the house hunting?” Anne asked as she tossed everything Harry was chopping into a large pan on the stove to simmer while the noodles boiled on the other burner. Her face was perfectly neutral, but there was a tension behind her eyes that made Louis a bit wary as he answered.

“Good,” he told her. “I think we have it down to just two that we feel pretty good about.”

“You’re not going to keep looking?” Anne asked.

She sounded surprised, which Louis supposed made sense since they’d only just started to actually put some real effort into it, but they’d known from the start exactly what they wanted which had made things a hell of a lot easier.

“There’s not a whole lot to choose from if we want to stay close by,” Harry answered before Louis had a chance to. She’d finished cutting the meat into neat little strips, so she moved out of the way and walked over to the sink to wash her hands while Anne took over at the stove. Louis couldn’t resist reaching over to pinch Harry’s ass as she walked by; she gave a little squeak of surprise in response, but Anne didn’t seem to notice.

“You don’t have to stay here,” Anne said placidly, though it was easy to tell that she was putting on a bit of a front. Clearly, she wanted Harry as close as possible—just not living in her backyard.

“We kinda do,” Louis pointed out. “We’d have to buy another car if we moved too far from Harry’s work. Plus, we both like it here.”

“And I definitely wouldn’t want to move away from you,” Harry said as she enveloped her mother in a tight embrace.

“You’re sweet, dear,” Anne replied with a laugh, her voice thick with suppressed emotion. “It’ll be good for you to have your own space, though.”

“I know, Mom,” Harry replied, smiling as she pulled away. “You were the one who told us we should start looking into moving out in the first place.”

“Was I?” Anne asked. She stared up at the ceiling in feigned bewilderment. “Hmm, I don’t remember saying anything like that.”

Louis watched the exchange silently, a soft smile spreading across his face as he observed the two of them interacting while they cooked. It made him miss his own childhood home, but he was more used to the absence than Harry, and it would have been unfair of him to burden his mother with his presence when she still had so many actual children living at home.

With Anne, it was different. Harry was her youngest, and with Gemma having already moved out years ago and Robin’s passing, it would have been a lot for Harry to move more than a few miles away. Louis didn’t mind sacrificing their freedom of choice for comfort and practicality instead.

Thankfully, dinner was finished before Louis could sink any further into melancholy nostalgia, and finally having the chance to fill his stomach for the first time since breakfast that morning provided a welcome conclusion to the day.

There was just one more thing he needed to take care of first.

“I definitely think you’ll need to come in me more than once,” Harry said at a volume far louder than she probably should have, seeing as they were still outside walking through the grass to the casita, where any one of the neighbors could have had a window open and overheard.

Louis gripped her hand a little tighter as he pulled her along. “You think so, huh?” he replied, already playing along.

“Mhmm. And I think we should try the wheelbarrow.”

Louis groaned. “Are you trying to kill me?” he asked. Holding Harry’s legs up around his waist while he fucked her—more than once—was going to have him bedridden from the muscle soreness the next morning.

Harry tugged her hand out of Louis’s grip without answering and made a mad dash for the casita door. Louis picked up the pace and followed, just managing to slip in before Harry shut the door on him. He picked her up as she shrieked, the sound alarming both cats, who ran circles around Louis’s feet as he carried Harry into their bedroom and dropped her down onto the mattress.

“It’d be pretty irresponsible to get pregnant now,” Louis said as he shrugged out of his clothes, matching Harry’s pace as she peeled off her dress and underwear before getting on all fours. “Everyone’ll think we’re only getting married because of the baby.”

“Let them,” Harry breathed, her voice morphing into a sharp gasp as Louis pushed two lube-slick fingers into her from behind. “Need you to fill me up. I don’t care about what they think. Wanna have your babies _now_.”

Louis carefully lifted her into position with one arm tucked under her tummy, the other keeping his cock angled against the entrance to her cunt. He pushed in slowly, savoring the tightness of the initial penetration just as much as he had the very first time.

Harry gasped again when he bottomed out, deeper than he usually got when they opted for missionary, which was almost always when Harry got her way. She liked the intimacy of being face to face. The fact that she’d asked for something else this time was a statement to her commitment to the fantasy.

“Fuck,” she groaned. She managed to worm a hand between her stomach and the bed, pressing down against her navel over where Louis’s cock was wedged inside her as deep as he could go. “Can feel you right here.”

“Feels good?”

“Yeah.”

“Need me to fuck you?”

“ _Please_.”

Louis only managed to come inside her twice, defaulting to missionary with Harry’s legs over his shoulders for the second round, but judging from the satisfied smile on her face as she drifted off to sleep full of his come with her hands pressed over the slight pudge of her stomach, it had been more than enough.


	26. Chapter 26

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Harry and Louis were exactly twenty-seven minutes late to the gathering at Louis’s childhood home, during which everyone, including Gemma and all of Louis’s younger siblings, were supposed to help Lottie and Jay finish up the wedding decorations.

To be perfectly clear, it wasn’t Louis’s fault in any way that they were running late, but it wasn’t like he could tell his family that the reason it had taken them so long was because Harry had decided at the very last minute that she was too horny to go without sex for the next four hours and needed to be fucked within an inch of her life before they could leave the house.

Louis, being the gentleman that he was, had gladly obliged.

It started, like most days did, with a bit of slow shower sex.

“Should get you on your knees more often,” Harry joked as she stared down at Louis, who had her spread open with both hands while she stood under the hot water, holding herself completely still as Louis teased her clit into a semblance of its former glory with his tongue. Though ‘former’ didn’t really feel like it applied anymore, seeing as how Harry was all the more glorious in Louis’s eyes the way she was now.

“Laugh it up,” Louis replied, shifting his weight from one knee to the other but finding little success in reaching a more comfortable position. “I don’t know how much longer I can stand to be down here,” he admitted.

Harry’s smug smile wavered as her brows pulled together in a more pensive expression. “Wait, get up for a second,” she said unexpectedly, offering her hand toward Louis in order to help him do just that.

Louis obeyed even though he was confused as to what had suddenly gone wrong. “What’s up?”

“Just remembered that I wanted to try something,” Harry replied. She turned around without any further explanation and reached up to unhook the showerhead attachment that Louis had always complained about buying since they’d first acquired it—because neither of them had ever really even used it since it had been installed.

“What’s that for?” Louis wondered as he watched Harry adjust the force of the water pressure coming through the nozzle.

Harry didn’t answer, instead angling the water so it was flowing upward as she focused the spray against her clit. “Oh my god,” she gasped, nearly dropping the showerhead in her shock at the new sensation. “Yep, that’s just as good as I thought it would be. Holy shit.”

“Want me to hold it?” Louis offered.

Harry nodded and held the attachment out to him. “I don’t know if I can stand up,” she admitted as they switched positions.

Louis quickly surveyed the available space in search of a solution. “We could sit like we do in the bath,” he suggested. That way, Harry could lay against his chest with her legs splayed out however she liked while Louis held the showerhead in the desired position.

Harry nodded eagerly. It took some doing to get into place and comfortable, but they managed it. And it was worth it for the way Harry’s legs trembled when Louis finally locked in just the right angle to make her come undone.

They used all the hot water in the process, but somehow, Harry ended up coming twice in a row without having a single finger on or inside her—a first since her surgery. Louis had to practically carry her out of the tub and back to bed afterward, but it was definitely worth it, especially since coming twice had only seemed to make her all the more desperate for more sex once she was capable of forming human speech again.

“We have that thing at my mom’s,” Louis reminded her as he traced a finger under the crease of one of her breasts. “We should really eat and start getting ready for that.”

Harry’s lower lip jutted out in an exaggerated pout as she stared up at Louis. “Food first, then sex, then we get ready,” she countered.

Louis sighed. “Harry—”

She shoved a finger against his lips, silencing him. “You better fuck me so hard I can’t even think straight,” she warned him. “If I have to spend my whole day with Bridezilla _and_ deal with being horny on top of it….”

“All right, all right, I get it.” Louis didn’t think Lottie was being that awful, but he couldn’t deny that the closer they got to the wedding, the worse her tantrums had gotten. He guessed that Harry had heard horror stories secondhand with Gemma, who was probably receiving the brunt of it. Louis also knew that Harry could easily give Lottie a run for her money in the event that she wasn’t…satisfied, whether that was in the case of food, sleep, or sex. “But we’re definitely eating first.”

It had been Harry’s suggestion initially, but she sighed as though the thought of food was akin to facing the chopping block. “Fine,” she said airily before slipping out of bed to get dressed.

They didn’t make much of an effort in the way of clothes before heading into the kitchen to scavenge something to eat, which turned out to be French toast, since eggs and bread were about all they had to work with.

“We should really go to the store again soon,” Louis remarked as he watched Harry flip over the pieces of bread in the pan.

“We need to make a new budget for groceries,” Harry retorted. “I looked at your spreadsheets.”

Louis brought his hands up to his eyes. He hadn’t anticipated Harry actually poking into their financials without Louis presenting them to her first, but to be fair, he had planned on telling her. Just…not yet. “I was going to ask for a bit of help,” Louis confessed. “If they accept our offer on the house, it’s going to push us over the edge a little bit, but it’s not the end of the world.”

Harry’s eyes narrowed, but Louis liked to think that she could tell when he was lying to her. He wasn’t. “How bad is it exactly?” she asked in a calm tone.

Louis shook his head. “If we can borrow a thousand from your mom and a thousand from mine….”

“ _Louis_.”

Louis stood up from his seat and moved over to stand next to Harry. He cupped her face gently in his hands. “It’s just a precaution, babe. If they can’t help us out, I’ll start throwing shit on a credit card, but I would really rather not do that if we can avoid it. Okay? After the first couple months everything should settle down again and we can pay them back.”

Harry still looked uncertain as she nodded, but she didn’t voice any further words of protest as she finished cooking. They ate in silence, and for the duration of the meal, Louis thought that any sign of Harry’s earlier horniness had vanished in the wake of their argument.

He wasn’t expecting her to literally jump into his lap as soon as they dishes were cleared away, her hips grinding back and forth over the bulge of his rapidly hardening erection.

“We don’t have very much time,” Louis pointed out even as he was helping her out of her t-shirt before tossing it onto the kitchen floor.

Harry kissed him in lieu of responding, her arms wound so tight around his neck that Louis didn’t think he would’ve been able to remove her from his lap even if he wanted to.

“Bed, maybe?” Louis gasped out the second he had a chance to take another breath.

Harry looked almost feral, her curls hanging messily over her face as she stared down at him with wide eyes, and all the while, her hips never stopped moving, not even when Louis pressed his fingers hard enough into the curve of her ass that it must have hurt. “Yes,” she replied hoarsely. “Bed.”

Louis carried her there just as he’d carried her out of the shower earlier that morning. He dropped her onto the mattress where she landed with a breathy sigh, her legs spread in invitation even though she was still wearing a pair of shorts that neither of them had gotten around to taking off just yet.

Louis decided to rectify that now, reaching between them to peel the waistband down her thighs to reveal nothing but smooth skin and dark hair, grown back in full after her experimental shave some months ago now for their beach trip.

“You smell so good,” Louis told her. He buried his face against her inner thigh, inhaling a scent that was just Harry, unable to focus on the task at hand.

Harry was too impatient for Louis’s slow seduction, however, which was probably a good thing given their limited time. She nearly kicked him in the head in her efforts to discard her shorts before pulling Louis back up to kiss her again, her hands working simultaneously to rid him of his boxers.

Louis finally had to reach down to stop her when she grabbed his cock with clear intention. “Lube,” he reminded her. “We need lube.” Harry got plenty wet these days, but Louis had decided they could never be too careful.

Harry looked as put out as if Louis had dumped a bucket of ice water on her head, but she reached over to grab the lube from the nightstand without comment before pressing it into Louis’s hands. He endeavored to get the whole process done as quickly as possible, but he hadn’t counted on the fact that Harry hadn’t dilated that morning—it was nearly noon and she hadn’t had anything inside her since the night before, much less Louis’s cock.

“You’re going too slow,” Harry complained more than a full minute later, when Louis hadn’t managed to get more than just the tip of his cock inside her (and barely that).

“I don’t want to hurt you,” Louis said, teeth gritted as he tried to keep himself from coming. It was a near thing after how much she’d worked him up earlier in the shower by just rubbing up against him while she’d gotten off. Louis hadn’t come once in all of that, and with how tight Harry was right now…it was a near thing.

But Harry wasn’t having any of it. “I’m not made of fucking glass,” she retorted before looping her ankle around Louis’s waist and tugging him into her. Hard.

Both let out twin gasps as Louis’s cock slid the rest of the way into her in one fluid movement. When Louis glanced down between them again, he found that he’d bottomed out with less than an inch still visible between his hips and hers, and Louis knew for a fact that he’d gone deeper than he ever had previously.

“You okay?” he asked worriedly.

Harry’s face was still taut with shock for a few seconds before she recovered. She nodded emphatically, nudging Louis’s lower back with her heels in a clear invitation to continue. “If I can still walk after this,” she told him, “you’re fired.”

Louis let out an unbridled laugh before hopping to it. He did his best to abide by her request, but when they finally finished, they were met with the discovery that they’d eaten into the time both of them needed to get ready for going over to Jay’s, and there was absolutely no chance in hell they were going to make it there on time.

A good ninety minutes later, they were seated at Jay’s dining room table with the rest of the family while Gemma and Lottie glared at them both for the majority of the next hour, like Louis and Harry being late had somehow ruined everything.

Louis bopped his head along to the music playing throughout the first floor of the house and helped the twins with their flower arrangements. He didn’t really care that any of the adults were pissed off about their lack of punctuality, but Harry had turned bright red when they first walked into a room full of disapproving glances and was only just now starting to return to her normal color.

She’d barely made any progress in the last half hour on the candles she was supposed to be wrapping with colored ribbon, however, and Louis finally leaned over after watching her struggle with one for a few minutes to try and figure out what was wrong.

“You okay?” he asked in a low voice.

Harry nodded, but her expression remained pinched. “Just, um, sore,” she replied quickly. “I think.”

Louis rubbed the nape of her neck soothingly and went back to his own project, trying to finish as quickly as possible so they could appease the others, but his eyes kept drifting back to Harry, who was squirming in her chair more and more the longer they sat there at the table.

He was about to lean over again and ask if she was sure she was all right when she finally stood up, her chair sliding back with a loud squeak. “Sorry, bathroom,” she said hastily to the room at large before hurrying out like her hair had caught fire.

Louis stared after her quizzically and then glanced across the table to find Gemma and Lottie staring at him with matching expressions of bewilderment. Louis exhaled a long sigh and turned his attention back to the flower arrangements, making a mental note to himself to go after Harry if she didn’t come back within the next five minutes.

Harry did come back out, though, only a minute or two later, but her bone-white face as she quickly walked over to Louis was a good indication that things weren’t all right in the slightest.

“I need you to take me to the hospital,” Harry whispered into Louis’s ear.

Louis jumped up immediately and grabbed their things. “Um,” he said, stopping short when he realized the entire room was staring at them, wondering what the hell was going on. “We’ll explain later,” he finally settled on, before placing a hand on Harry’s back and gently steering her back into the foyer.

Gemma was hot on their heels. “Where are you going?” she demanded, adopting the predictable older sibling snippiness that Louis was no stranger to.

“Not right now, Gemma,” Louis said, trying to brush her off without getting into an involved explanation—because Louis didn’t really have one yet.

But Gemma was too observant to let Harry go without an answer. “Hey, are you okay?” she asked, reaching out to gently touch her younger sister’s arm.

“Louis needs to take me to the hospital,” Harry told her quietly. “It’s probably nothing, but—”

Gemma was already grabbing her jacket and purse from the bench in the entryway. “I’m coming with,” she said resolutely.

Louis glanced over at Harry, who just shrugged with an exasperated expression. He figured it wasn’t worth arguing with Gemma, especially since it would just be a waste of time. Louis still didn’t know what exactly was wrong with Harry, but he was determined to get her to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Harry was on the phone with the surgeon’s office as soon as they got into the car, confirming Louis’s suspicions that it was something related to her recent procedure. But if there’d been a complication, wouldn’t they have known about it by now?

It wasn’t until they reached the hospital and met up with Harry’s surgeon in the ER that Louis learned the source of the problem.

“She has a minor vaginal perforation,” the doctor informed both Louis and Gemma, who had insisted on following Louis into the exam room after Harry was done being looked at and had gotten dressed again.

“What does that mean?” Gemma demanded. “Is it from the surgery?”

Harry’s doctor exchanged a look with Louis that made him wince guiltily. Harry was still sitting on the exam table with her legs dangling off the edge and a small sheet covering her lower half, a similarly pained grimace on her face.

“No,” the doctor finally replied. “It’s not from the surgery, but it’s not anything to worry about.” He gave Gemma a tight smile before turning back to Louis. “She’ll need to keep an eye on the bleeding and take some antibiotics to prevent a possible infection. If it gets any worse, come back, but otherwise, she shouldn’t need any stitches.” The doctor cleared his throat a bit and glanced over at Gemma for a second before continuing. “Obviously, you should forego intercourse until she’s healed, but I think it would be good for her to go back to dilating at least three times a day for the next couple months at least. It’ll…help with things. In the future.”

Louis looked over at Gemma to find a confused expression still plastered onto her face, but he wasn’t about to be the one to explain to her why it was partially his fault that Harry had to make an unexpected trip to the emergency room.

Louis had to stifle a laugh as the three of them walked out into the parking lot. The situation wasn’t funny, really, but the expression on the surgeon’s face as he tried to talk around how Harry had acquired her injury had been absurd, and now that Louis wasn’t worried that Harry was about to drop dead on him, he could barely restrain the bout of nervous giggles that were threatening to explode.

“Is anyone going to tell me what the hell that was about?” Gemma finally demanded after climbing into the backseat.

Louis exchanged a loaded glance with Harry as he turned the keys in the ignition. “She’s _your_ sister,” Louis pointed out.

“Yeah, and it’s your fucking penis that got us into this mess,” Harry grumbled in a tone too low for Gemma to hear over the sound of the radio. Finally, she sucked in a deep breath and turned around to face Gemma. “Louis’s dick is too big,” she said bluntly.

Louis jolted in surprise and almost rear-ended the car in front of them. “Sorry,” he said quickly.

“You don’t have to apologize for it,” Harry remarked with a laugh, either not understanding that Louis’s comment was because of his driving or else just conveniently choosing to ignore it.

Louis glanced up in the rear-view mirror to find Gemma staring straight ahead in open-mouthed shock. He almost felt bad for her, but to be fair, she did ask for it.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Louis tapped his fingers nervously against his thigh as he sat on the couch in the living room, waiting for Harry to come stumbling in through the front door to the casita on her inelegantly gangly legs, made even more clumsy by the pair of heeled boots she’d thrown on that morning. Louis hated those boots, honestly. He wasn’t overly insecure about his height, but he liked being able to kiss Harry without having to actually get on his tiptoes to do it.

When Harry finally did come home, it was about twenty minutes later than Louis was anticipating, moving back their evening agenda in its entirety by that same amount of time. Louis gritted his teeth and tried to push back the instant flare of irritation as she walked in, especially when Anne followed her inside just a few seconds later.

“How’d it go?” Louis asked, squinting at the garment bag in Anne’s hands and the shoebox in Harry.

“Good,” Harry replied breezily. She set the box down on the couch before turning to her mom to grab the garment bag for the dress. “There was a sale, so. Forty-percent off.”

 _Thank god_ , Louis thought to himself. He moved closer to Anne once Harry disappeared into the bedroom, taking advantage of her momentary absence to pass on a message he’d been meaning to give her for a while. “Thanks for the ‘you know’,” Louis said to her in a quiet tone, not wanting Harry to overhear. Harry already knew that Louis had asked both their parents for loans, but Anne had gone above and beyond by offering half of hers as a congratulatory gift, and Louis didn’t want to discuss it until he’d figured out what Harry’s reaction to the news would be.

“I’m just glad you managed to get the house,” Anne replied with a smile. “Dinner tomorrow?”

“Yeah, of course.”

Louis watched her leave before heading into the bedroom to figure out what was taking Harry so long, only to find that she was changing out of the clothes she’d gone out in and into something a bit more comfortable for the band practice she was definitely going to be late for at this point.

“Can I see the dress this time?” Louis asked, figuring that if they were already throwing punctuality out the window, he might as well go for broke. “Or is it a surprise again?”

Harry rolled her eyes as she yanked her jeans up her thighs, pausing only to gesture toward the garment bag lying on the bed.

Louis carefully extracted the dress from the plastic covering, surprised at how much fabric there was—until he figured out that despite its floor-length hem, the neckline was surprisingly daring, and the short-sleeved bodice was made mostly out of lace. “Pretty,” Louis commented. “Though I am a little shocked your mom agreed to buy it for you.”

“I feel like you should know by now that my mom isn’t a prude,” Harry pointed out. It was nearly June, and unreasonably warm out in Louis’s opinion, but she pulled on a sweatshirt over her clothes before fluffing out her hair and turning to go back out into the living room.

Now that Harry was finished getting ready, Louis quickly grabbed the car keys and followed her out. He did his best to get to Adam’s as quickly as possible, and all the while aware that the slightest shift in his emotions was all it would take to tip Harry off to the fact that not everything was as it seemed.

Thankfully, Harry was distracted by the sudden flurry of text messages from her bandmates that started to arrive about halfway through the drive over, all of them wondering where she was and how long she was going to be.

Louis focused on not getting into an accident as he weaved through traffic, leaving Harry to deal with her own problems and hoping that sending her reassurances that she was on her way would keep her from catching on to the way his fingers were trembling against the steering wheel at every red light.

They arrived in front of Adam’s house just before dark, the last few rays of the sun setting providing just enough light for Louis to make out the shape of the other man standing in the doorway as they pulled up.

Harry pushed open her door with a frown and paused with one leg on the curb. “You could just stay, you know,” she said, giving Louis her best set of doe eyes in an effort to get him to fold.

But Louis couldn’t be swayed. He shook his head firmly, his hands never leaving the wheel as he sat with the engine idling and his foot on the brake, waiting for Harry to get out and close the door so he could set off again. “I really need to go home and finish up that stuff from work,” he lied. “I don’t want to get distracted.”

Harry sighed. “Okay,” she said, clearly disappointed as she leaned in for a last goodbye kiss before climbing out. “I’ll text you when it starts to wind down, then.”

“Sounds good.”

Louis watched Harry walk up the long pathway up to the front door, where she met Adam before turning to wave at Louis before going inside. Adam waved too, and Louis returned his as well, waiting until the door had closed behind them both before immediately switching his foot to the gas pedal and peeling away quickly from the curb.

Louis wasn’t headed home like he’d told Harry he would, however. He plugged Liam’s address in at the stop sign at the end of the street. It took long enough to reroute him that he ended up being honked at by someone else in the intersection, but Louis ignored it. Liam’s apartment was a good thirty minutes from Adam’s place, even without traffic, so when he finally arrived to find two other cars parked out front already, Louis wasn’t the least bit surprised.

Niall and Zayn were already sitting on either side of Liam’s couch when Louis walked in, beers in their hands while Liam was in the fridge, evidently helping himself to the same twelve-pack. Louis breezed past all three of them to grab his own bottle before sacking out on the couch between the other two, who exchanged a loaded glance over Louis’s head before anyone said a single word.

“You sure took your time,” Niall complained, finally breaking the silence as he watched Louis chug nearly half his beer before responding.

“I didn’t want Harry getting suspicious,” Louis replied between gulps. “She would have been on my ass in a second if I tried to rush her at all.”

Both Zayn and Niall gave matching shrugs; they’d each been on the receiving end of Harry’s almost supernatural ability to sense when something was just a bit fishy: namely, every time in the history of their relationship that Louis had ever tried to surprise her with something. He was still shocked he’d managed to acquire the kittens without setting her off in some way, but he supposed that could be attributed to the fact that she had been too distracted by her own post-surgery depression to worry about anything else.

Finally, Liam finished up in the kitchen and sat down on the armchair facing the other three with a sigh. “So,” he said expectantly.

Louis nodded and quickly lifted the beer to his mouth to finish the rest before answering.

Zayn started to laugh before Louis got a single word out, the sound escalating to a near-cackle before he put a hand over his mouth to stop it. The other guys looked at him in confusion while Louis lowered his now-empty beer bottle onto the coffee table with a frown.

“What?” Louis demanded.

“Just thinking,” Zayn replied through the last vestiges of his laughter. “Maybe you really are straight now if just the idea of marrying Harry drives you to drinking.”

“It’s not the marriage part that’s stressing me out,” Louis replied, perhaps a bit more angrily than the situation warranted given that he was pretty sure Zayn hadn’t meant to imply anything negative with his joking comment. “I just—proposing,” he finished clumsily. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Are you even sure Harry’s ready to be proposed to?” Liam asked with a dubious expression. His response wasn’t unexpected, given the fact that he’d been so gung-ho about marrying Sophia one day the whole time they’d been dating, only for that relationship to go up in flames completely out of nowhere. At least from Liam’s point of view.

But still, Louis wasn’t sure what to think. Maybe Harry really wasn’t ready. Maybe _he_ wasn’t ready.

Niall scoffed loudly, apparently not sharing Liam’s opinion in the slightest. “Harry’s been waiting for Louis to ask her to marry him since the day they met,” he argued.

Louis contemplated that for a moment. Harry did talk about marriage a lot, but….

“She’s clearly giving you hints, bro,” Zayn added, as though he could read Louis’s mind and was responding to his thoughts directly. “If she didn’t want you to propose to her, she wouldn’t be putting it out there at all. End of discussion.”

Louis tipped his chin into his hands and let out a long exhale through his nose as he thought it over. After a minute or so of mulling over everything his friends had said, he came to the abrupt realization that the only reason he was freaking out so much about potentially proposing was because it had always seemed like something that he would have to worry about in the distant future. But now, with Harry’s surgery behind them and a new house within reach, Louis was finally being forced to acknowledge that the future was here already, and he had no choice but to deal with it accordingly.

“I have to propose to her after we move in,” Louis announced in a daze as he sat back up again. “Don’t I?”

Zayn let out a quiet snort as he leaned over to pat Louis on the back. “Yeah, buddy,” he said with a smile, “you really do.”

They discussed potential scenarios for a bit while everyone—Louis excluded—drank even more, until finally the conversation drifted to other (non-Harry-related) things. It was nice to forget about all the stress Louis had been crumbling under for the last six months and focus on lighter topics instead, as well as other people’s problems, in Liam’s case, even if the forgetting only lasted a few hours.

By the time Harry finally texted Louis that she was ready to be picked up, Louis’s mood had improved significantly since earlier that day, and he now had a new goal in mind: propose to Harry.

There was no caveat attached to the destination like there used to be, no ‘when the time is right’. Louis was determined to take the necessary steps to make the proposal a reality as soon as they closed on the house. He knew that, ultimately, Harry wouldn’t care about the ring or the circumstances of the proposal itself as much as she did about getting married—actually married—but Louis was well-tuned to her addiction to romcoms and her penchant for whimsy. However he decided to do this, he needed to do it right.

Louis was a bit surprised when he finally arrived at Adam’s house to find that Harry had very obviously been doing some drinking of her own. “Jesus,” he said as pulled the swaying girl out of Adam’s arms in the entryway to the house. “How much did she have?”

Adam winced. “Emi might have overdone the Shirley Temples a bit. You could hardly taste the moonshine, so.”

Louis grimaced. Not that the presence of detectable alcohol would have stopped Harry, considering how she used to down tequilas on the rocks with more muster than any of the guys Louis had been friends with in college, but it might have slowed her down at least a little.

“Maybe no more drinking on weeknights,” Louis suggested. “She’s gonna have to call out of work in the morning.” There was no doubt about it, and Louis was going to have to be the one to make sure her hangover was being mediated adequately before he headed off to work himself.

“Yeah,” Adam replied sheepishly as he scratched at the back of his neck. “Sorry about that.”

“You guys get a lot done?” Louis asked, trying to change the subject as Harry clung to him like she might fall over if she let go. Seeing as how wasted she was, it was a legitimate concern. “Festival’s in a couple months, right?”

“End of August, yeah,” Adam replied, nodding. “I think we’ve all got the new songs down, but Harry wants to add one more to the end of the set.”

“Isn’t it kind of late for that?” Louis wondered.

“It’s all good,” Harry drunkenly mumbled into the side of Louis’s neck. “We need Mitch to do a solo,” she added, “for the encore.”

“And how does Mitch feel about that?” Louis wondered.

“Oh, Mitch is ecstatic,” Adam informed him. “Clare’s the one who thinks we’re trying to do too much at once.”

Louis rolled his eyes. “Well, I’m sure you’ll all figure it out,” he said. He was also pretty sure that once Harry was sober she’d be bitching to him about all of this stuff, so it paid to find out about it in advance. “Which song is it?” he wondered. Harry had played him a couple new ones in the last few months, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about changing the set list.

“She,” Harry said a bit louder than before. “Mitch helped me finish it.”

“Ah.” Louis supposed it made sense then why she wanted to include it. The gender dysphoria metaphor was clear to anyone familiar enough with her struggles to catch on, and overall, the song itself was a bit of a musical masterpiece in Louis’s opinion.

“It sounds amazing,” Adam confided. “You’ll have to hear us play it at the next practice.”

“Yeah,” Louis said, nodding. “I guess I will. See you then?”

“Yeah, of course, man. You guys having a housewarming party or something?”

“Haven’t decided yet,” Louis admitted. “But maybe.”

“You should,” Adam advised with a knowing expression. “It’s your best bet at stocking a kitchen short of getting married.”

Louis let out a hollow laugh, thankful that Harry was too drunk to read anything into the look on his face. “Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.”

After saying their goodbyes, Louis had to struggle to get Harry all the way out to the street, and getting her into the car was even more of a chore. She was passed out for most of the drive home but woke up almost as soon as they turned onto the street for Anne’s house, her eyes suddenly open and alert as they pulled into their parking spot.

Louis was surprised when she managed to walk into the casita and get undressed completely of her own accord, but her energy seemed to flag once she was down to just her underwear and a pair of socks.

“Do you want help dilating?” Louis asked as he sat down at the foot of the bed to help her peel her socks off.

“Please,” Harry replied sleepily.

Louis put a nature documentary on TV before getting out the dilation supplies, and when he finally turned around to face Harry again, she had already wiggled out of her underwear and assumed the position with her legs up and a towel under her butt.

“Tell me if it hurts at all,” Louis said as he lubed up the first dilator before carefully pressing it into her. He still hadn’t fully recovered from the traumatic experience of having to take Harry to the ER because he’d accidentally been a bit too rough with her, even though Harry didn’t seem fazed at all by any of it now that the immediate danger had passed.

Harry just yawned in response and nodded. She barely reacted at all to the intrusion of the second, much larger dilator, and by the time the whole process was finished, she was practically snoring already. Louis decided to forego the thorough cleaning this time and wiped up the excess lube between her legs before pulling up the covers over her legs. He left the towel where it was, though; he didn’t want her to wake up to a wet spot soaking through to the mattress in the morning.

“Goodnight,” Louis said out loud as he turned off the lights before climbing in alongside her. Louis wasn’t tired, however, at least not the same way Harry had been, so he only laid there for a few minutes before getting up and going into the office to try and be productive for a little while before heading back to bed.

The bedroom was surprisingly quiet when Louis reentered it a good hour or so later. Louis was used to Harry’s snoring, and it was strange to be confronted with the absence of the sound, but he didn’t think anything of it until after he’d crawled into bed next to Harry only for her voice to unexpectedly break the silence some immeasurable amount of time later.

“Are you still awake?”

Louis was, but only just barely. Harry’s whisper penetrated the fog clouding his brain, pulling him back to the world of the living for a moment. “Mhmm,” he murmured into her shoulder. “What’s up?”

“Can’t stop thinking about stuff,” she replied.

Louis sat up a little and rubbed his eyes, trying to make out Harry’s features in the darkness. “What kind of stuff?” he asked. He was well-acquainted with her anxiety-induced insomnia, and this wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to talk her into relaxing enough so that she could fall asleep, though it was surprising that she was having trouble with it tonight after how much she’d had to drink earlier.

“Just like—I’m glad it was you,” Harry said vaguely. She continued before Louis had the chance to ask her what she meant by that. “And like, that you didn’t just break up with me when I told you everything.”

“I wouldn’t,” Louis replied.

Harry shifted a little and turned onto her side so that she was fully facing Louis. “I know that now,” she said, “but I had no idea how you’d react back then. I used to be so fucking scared of having to come out to someone after I transitioned, honestly. When I was a teenager, I used to come up with all these stupid scenarios in my head where I told my imaginary future boyfriend that I was trans and he’d tell me he didn’t care before carrying me into the sunset, because it felt better than confronting the fact that in real life he’d probably just be horrified and dump me. Or worse.”

“That’s not stupid,” Louis reassured her.

Harry was quiet for a few seconds, long enough that Louis thought she might have started to fall asleep, but then she spoke up again. “You know I only dated bi people before you? Because I thought it would be easier to come out to them one day?” She laughed nervously under her breath. “Of course, that didn’t really help with girls because I could never really tell if I was attracted to them or just wanted to be them or if it was both, but….”

Louis hadn’t known any of that, but then again, he’d never pried into what her dating life was like before he’d come into the picture. “Then why’d you agree to go out with me?” he wondered.

Harry nuzzled closer, her breath hot against Louis’s throat. “Just really liked you,” she murmured. “I was like, so in love with you right away that I actually told myself I could just keep being a boy as long as I got to keep you.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Louis replied. It might have been easier for him initially, but he knew it would have been hell for her to keep repressing that part of herself, and there was no way things would have worked out between them if she’d tried to sacrifice her own happiness for Louis’s sake.

“Yeah,” Harry said through a yawn. “Me too. But I was still scared to death to come out to you. Even though I knew you weren’t going to be like, mean about it. I was convinced you were going to break up with me after.”

“I’m glad I didn’t,” Louis told her, echoing himself. It had been a near thing, if he was being perfectly honest with himself. He didn’t know how to cope with Harry’s identity at first, and there had been times when he’d thought it would be easier on both of them if they just went their separate ways. But they hadn’t, and they were both better off for it now.

“I’m still scared sometimes,” Harry confessed in a small voice. “I know I shouldn’t be, I know I’m safe, but sometimes I remember being a kid and only seeing girls like me being beaten up and raped and killed in movies and on TV and thinking that someday it was going to happen to me and I just get so—”

Louis pulled her in with a tight squeeze and buried his face in her hair. “You know I’d take a bullet before I let anything bad happen to you, right?”

“Yeah,” Harry replied with a sigh. “I know.”

They fell asleep like that, with neither exchanging another word before succumbing to the darkness.


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s
> 
> Quick warning for some sad stuff involving Jay in this chapter.

“Do you ever think about getting married?”

Louis’s chest seized up as he blinked a few times at Harry in the mirror. Had one of the guys told her? Or were they just that in sync now? “Were you really trying to get me to propose to you back then?” he wondered, speaking slow and carefully so as to not clue her in to the fact that he was already planning on doing just that.

Harry pulled away the tube of lipstick from her lips as she laughed. “No, I was just wondering if you think about it. I won’t be upset if you say no. I know getting married’s not like, the end all-be all of a relationship anymore.”

Louis considered her question for a couple seconds as he straightened out his tie before moving to stand behind Harry at the sink, his hands curving gently over her waist. “I guess I think about the logistics of it more than daydreaming about the event itself,” he said, “if that’s what you mean.”

“What,” Harry replied as she spun around in his arms a bit to face him, “you never cut out wedding dresses from magazines and imagined what you’d look like in them?” The smile on her face said she was joking, but there was a detectable note of truth in her voice that Louis couldn’t ignore.

“Did you really do that?” Louis asked her. He supposed it made sense, given everything he knew about her now, but it was still difficult to imagine Harry before he’d met her, no matter how many baby pictures Anne thrust at him during family gatherings.

Harry nodded, and now there was a bit of a melancholy cast to her expression. “I think that was the first time I actually gave the kids at school a reason to call me gay,” she said. “We were supposed to be doing a collage of what we thought our life would be like in ten years and mine was just a bunch of photos of flowers and dresses from bridal magazines. I think there was maybe a horse thrown in somewhere, too. I don’t know.”

“When was that?” Louis asked.

“When I was eight.”

Louis hissed quietly. “Missed the mark a little on that one,” he joked. He knew Harry had realized she was a girl when she was still a child, but hadn’t had a word for it until years later; it wasn’t surprising that her peers had latched onto the only explanation for her behavior that they were familiar with. Louis, too, had endured his fair share of bullying as a child for his sexuality, but at least they’d been right about it.

“Yeah, no kidding.” Harry lifted her hands to cover Louis’s and swayed a little in his arms, holding his gaze in the mirror again. “I think I’d want a big wedding,” she said definitively. “Gemma used to think eloping and getting married in Las Vegas was more romantic or whatever, but I think I want the big backyard reception where you have to personally greet every relative who’s still alive and you can milk a waffle maker out of.”

Louis inwardly thought that that scenario sounded a bit like torture even though all the fanfare surrounding it was appealing, but he knew that if Harry wanted it, he would do it. No matter what. And he was relieved his instincts had been right. “Is this you telling me I should start looking for a ring, then?” he asked, striving to keep a casual tone.

Harry lifted her left hand and held it up to her face for closer examination. “I don’t know,” she replied airily. “What do you think?”

“I think you might just have wedding envy because of Lottie and that we still have that down payment to worry about,” Louis said honestly. Inwardly, he was hoping she’d correct him, insist that that wasn’t all it was, that marriage was on her mind for the right reasons, not just because they were about to head off to Lottie’s rehearsal dinner.

Harry laughed again. “Okay,” she admitted, “maybe so, but still. A girl can dream.”

Louis felt his heart sink. He looked down at her hand for a few beats before breaking the silence again. “What would you want?” he asked. He was trying to convince himself now that Harry had only agreed with his assumption to further the conversation and that she was actually trying to lay a trail of breadcrumbs that would eventually lead to the altar.

“Hmm?”

“For a ring,” Louis clarified. He cleared his throat nervously. “What would you want?”

Harry spun around and narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not really going to get one, are you?” She sounded worried now.

Louis shook his head emphatically, his mouth dry. “Not right now,” he told her, which wasn’t technically a lie. “But, just for future reference, you know? We might mysteriously inherit some money from a long-lost relative or something all of a sudden, and then where would we be?” He forced a smile onto his face, fervently hoping that this wasn’t about to be the moment where Harry shut down the marriage conversation in its entirety. Maybe Liam had been right after all.

Harry lifted an eyebrow skeptically but glanced down at her fingers again and sighed. “Diamonds are definitely too problematic,” she said seriously. “But I feel like other stones are probably just as bad, so I don’t know.”

“There are fake diamonds and stuff like that,” Louis reminded her. Not that he really wanted to get her something fake for her engagement ring, but. Still.

Harry gave him a look that clearly implied she didn’t appreciate his input on the matter. “I know,” she replied. “But for a wedding ring, I think I’d want the real thing.” She sighed again. “Maybe an opal?” she continued. “I always thought they were pretty, you know. Like little rainbows. Where do opals come from?”

“Australia, I think?” Louis said uncertainly. “Liam claims he found one in Nevada somewhere, but I feel like that has to be bullshit.”

Harry hummed contemplatively and moved a little closer to Louis, pressing her hips against his in a way that was decidedly not appropriate given the fact that they needed to leave the house in less than ten minutes. “If you get me an opal ring from Australia or Nevada or wherever the fuck and propose to me on an especially romantic date,” she said, “I can promise you’ll get a yes.”

Louis’s heart stopped for what felt like a full minute, though it must have only been a millisecond or two. A smile slowly spread across his face in unbridled relief. “Oh, you promise?” Louis teased. “Is that so?”

“Mhmm,” Harry replied happily. “Ninety days or your money back.”

Louis really wanted to kiss the smile right off of her, but she’d just finished doing her lipstick, so he aimed his mouth at her cheek instead. “Come on,” he said. “We don’t want to be late. Again.”

It was more important now than ever before that Louis arrived on time and didn’t do anything to potentially piss Lottie off. He’d escaped the perils of having to be one of the groomsmen, thereby avoiding the bachelor party in its entirety—Harry had feigned illness to get out of attending the bachelorette bash, and Louis had expressed his appreciation for that by fucking her senseless—but because of certain family issues that none of them wanted to discuss at length, Louis had found himself the sole male member of their immediate family who was willing and capable of walking Lottie down the aisle.

Despite Lottie’s love for theatrics, and overly expensive parties, both the rehearsal dinner and wedding reception were intended to be relatively casual affairs taking place in Jay’s backyard. When Harry and Louis arrived in the late afternoon, dressed in nothing fancier than a button up and tan slacks (in Louis’s case) and a pale blue sundress (in Harry’s), they found the members of the wedding party hard at work putting together the tables and decorations for the festivities.

Louis was immediately roped into helping. Harry did her best to offer her assistance only for Jay to protest at every turn. When Louis tried to point out that Harry’s surgery had been six months ago and that she was perfectly capable of performing physical labor, Jay swatted at the back of his head and scolded him, telling him to, “Be quiet and help your sisters” with no further room for argument.

Harry shrugged with an apologetic expression as Louis shook his head and walked over to grab a stack of chairs. She disappeared at some point while Louis was helping the others set up, and it wasn’t until after he’d finished that he realized he hadn’t seen her since the first ten minutes or so after they’d arrived.

It was nearly dark now that the tables and decorations had all been carefully arranged throughout the backyard, and that made Louis’s job a little harder as he scanned the little clumps of people that had arrived early for the rehearsal dinner to help out. It didn’t take him long to determine that Harry wasn’t anywhere to be found outside, however, and within the next minute or so, he realized that his mother was missing as well.

He found the both of them inside, standing together in the kitchen, Harry’s hands clasped tightly within Jay’s as Louis’s mother spoke in a voice too low for Louis to make out from the back door. He paused there, waiting for them to turn and acknowledge him before he took another step inside.

“Am I interrupting something?” Louis asked in a nonchalant tone, though it was pretty obvious that he had done just that.

“Nope,” Jay said with a tight smile as she let go of Harry to move over and give her son a hug instead. “I’ll tell you later, okay?” she whispered hurriedly into Louis’s ear before pulling away.

Louis couldn’t suppress the frown that spread across his face as he watched Jay walk past him to go back out to the backyard. He waited until the door closed behind her before moving close enough to reach for Harry’s hand. “What was that about?” Louis wondered.

Harry shook her head with a tight smile. “Nothing,” she replied. “Don’t worry about it.”

Louis was more worried now than if she’d never tried to reassure him at all, but he tried to tamp that down as they headed out to rejoin the others, who were getting ready for the first guests arriving for the actual dinner portion of the night’s festivities.

There were a large number of strangers in attendance thanks to Tommy’s side of the family finally arriving in town for the wedding (he was originally from Maryland), so Louis found himself shaking at least a dozen hands in the first ten minutes of the gathering’s official commencement. Once that was taken care of, Louis and Harry proceeded to their assigned seats on the bride’s side of the large banquet table that had been set up amongst the smaller ones that would be used the next night for the reception.

Louis was immediately to Lottie’s right, with Jay opposite her and Tommy’s parents across from him. Thankfully, due to the seating arrangements, Louis didn’t have to worry about making conversation with anyone from Tommy’s family with the exception of his parents, though he expected them to be more than occupied with Lottie and Jay during the meal.

He ended up being correct in that assumption and turned his attention to Harry, Gemma, and his younger sisters instead, all of whom started in on an argument almost immediately about whether Fizzy should be allowed to have a glass of wine with dinner like the adults. Louis watched the whole thing with an amused smile before passing his glass over to Fizzy while Jay wasn’t looking, ignoring the matching looks of disapproval from both Gemma and Harry in the process.

“You can have some when Harry and I get married,” Louis promised Daisy and Phoebe after noting their jealous scowls, just in time for Fizzy to pull away the glass with a disgusted expression.

“This shit’s nasty,” she remarked with an exaggerated retching noise.

“Fizzy,” Jay hissed in reprimand, her attention shifting from Tommy and his parents to her daughters’ hijinks just long enough to catch the verbal slip. “Language.”

“Sorry,” Fizzy muttered before covertly passing the wine back to Louis, who immediately passed it to Harry instead.

“You don’t want any?” Harry asked as she lifted the glass to take a cautious sip.

Louis shook his head. “You know I don’t like wine,” he reminded her. But more than anything, he didn’t want to be the slightest bit impaired when it came time to make his toast.

That moment came more than an hour later, after Louis had merely picked at his dinner and dessert due to his nerves. The only saving grace was the fact that at the very least, Louis wasn’t the one who had to go first.

Louis watched Tommy’s father give a grand speech about the bride and groom’s future together, sprinkling in a bit of his own wisdom as a married man himself before closing with a few precious nuggets of advice. And then he was sitting back down again, and suddenly it was Louis’s turn to seize the spotlight.

Harry gripped his hand tightly as Louis hastily rose to his feet. “I know this isn’t the most traditional toast,” he said to no one in particular, staring out ahead into the darkness before turning his head to look down at his sister instead, “but Lottie really wanted me to say a few words, so you’ll have to bear with me on this one; I wasn’t really expecting to be acting as the father of the bride for another thirty years or so.”

There was a polite flutter of laughs from around the table. Harry squeezed Louis’s hand again, giving him a quick flare of confidence as he continued.

“I’ll keep this quick since I don’t think there’s much advice I can offer as someone who’s never been married, but I just want to offer my gratitude to Tommy for making my sister happy for all the years that you’ve been together, and to my sister, I’d just like to say that I forgive you for stealing my thunder as the first Tomlinson child to get married. You finally figured out the secret to becoming Mom’s favorite.”

Lottie rolled her eyes as the laughter grew a little louder, Tommy’s in particular booming loudly throughout the open space.

Louis cleared his throat and shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he prepared to finish his toast. “Finally, I want to express my gratitude to everyone for helping to make my sister’s big day every bit as perfect as she could’ve hoped. I know I’ve never seen her as happy as she’s been today, and I can only hope that tomorrow she’s even happier.” He drew in a short breath, addressing the rest to Lottie directly. “I know Tommy will be a great husband to you, and I wish you guys all the best. I love you so much.”

Lottie leapt up from her seat to throw her arms around Louis’s waist before he had a chance to sit down, the toast itself interrupted by her enthusiasm, though he just managed to lift his glass as she finally let go of him with a tear-filled expression. “Thank you,” she mouthed as they sat back down again.

Exhausted from the stress that had suddenly been released from his body now that his duty had been fulfilled, Louis could only nod dumbly.

The rest of the night passed by in a haze, with Louis doing little more than watching as Harry made the rounds with a wine glass in her hand, speaking to everyone she came across, whether she’d known them prior to the event or not.

Louis started a bit when he suddenly felt a hand curling around his wrist an indeterminable amount of time later, only to turn and find that it was his mother, staring up at him plaintively. “Can we go inside and talk for a minute before you leave?” she asked in a low tone.

Louis nodded and took just a second to confirm that Harry was otherwise occupied with Gemma and Lottie’s friends before following Jay into the house. He was only expecting to head into the kitchen or living room for their talk, but Jay led him up the stairs without saying a word before leading Louis unexpectedly into her bedroom.

“I thought we’d have a bit more privacy in here,” she explained as she closed the door behind him, while Louis sat down on the edge of her bed.

“Is this about what you and Harry were talking about earlier?” Louis asked. He was still curious as to the details of that conversation—curious and more than a little bit worried. Whatever it was, Louis didn’t feel good about it.

“More or less,” Jay replied vaguely. She sighed as she sat down next to Louis, laying her hands over his hands before tipping her head against his own. “This is hard for me to talk about,” she admitted, and Louis suddenly felt like there was something very solid lodged at the back of his throat.

“Mom…” he started to say, only for Jay to pull back suddenly, a fierce look in her eyes as she shook her head.

“Just let me get through this,” she insisted.

Louis nodded, and kept his mouth shut as he waited for the blow he knew was coming.

Jay stared down at their joined hands, her breathing growing more ragged by the second. Somehow, she managed to stay dry-eyed, her voice unexpectedly strong when she finally spoke again. “Baby, I don’t think I have very many years ahead of me.”

Louis swallowed hard. “I thought you said you’ve been feeling better lately,” he replied, voice thick with the tears he could already feel building.

Jay closed her eyes for a moment, nodding slowly before opening them again. “It’s just a feeling,” she replied. “Physically…I mean, the doctor’s say I’m fine, for now, at least, but…. I just have this sense in the back of my mind, like time’s running out.”

“I don’t—” Louis started to say before stopping himself. As much as he wished he didn’t, he did understand. He knew that his mom wouldn’t have told him any of this if she wasn’t sure about it. And that just made it even worse. “Did you tell Harry when you were talking to her before?” he asked instead, trying not to sound hurt by the assumption.

Jay shook her head. “No, but I wanted to talk to her about something before I spoke to you. Did you know that she’s expecting you to ask her to marry you?”

There was a dull ringing in Louis’s ears as he nodded; he wasn’t sure where it had come from or why he’d suddenly become aware of it. He blinked away the traces of moisture at the corners of his eyes, threatening to emerge. “I was planning to propose soon,” he replied with a quiet sniffle. “Before the end of the year, at least.”

A warm smile slowly spread across Jay’s face. She gave Louis’s hands a tight squeeze as she leaned into him. “I didn’t want to pressure you into doing anything you weren’t ready for, but I’d give anything to be at your wedding, baby. Before…just in case something happens someday. I want to make sure that I’m there for you. Both of you.”

Louis’s face crumpled, the tears flowing from his eyes like a broken dam now. He lifted Jay’s hands up to his face, crying into them for a moment before she managed to extricate herself from his grip to hug him instead. “I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” he sobbed, grateful that they were alone and that he had some time at least to compose himself after all this before heading out again to find Harry. He didn’t want her to know what Jay had told him, didn’t want to remind her of the fact that she’d already lost the opportunity to have one of her own parents present at their wedding.

Finally, Louis’s crying came to a shuddering halt. He pulled away with a deep breath, his eyes already feeling raw from his tears.

“You’ll tell me if something’s wrong?” he asked in a small voice. “I don’t want—if you feel like we need to move up the wedding, I want to do it. Promise me you’ll say something.”

Jay nodded. “I promise,” she said softly. She cupped Louis’s face gently between her hands and stared into his eyes, her own finally going a bit glassy. “I’m so proud of you,” she told him. “I know things haven’t been easy for you and Harry, but you’ve been an amazing partner to her, and I know you’ll continue to be an amazing spouse. And I can’t wait to see you make her even happier.”

“Thank you,” Louis just managed to croak out. “I love you.”

“I love you, too, baby.”


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

When Louis woke on the morning of Lottie’s wedding, he was comforted by the thought that the night before must have all been a dream. Then reality came flooding in, turning him cold, and he rolled over into his pillow to muffle something that might have turned into a scream if he’d let it free.

“Babe?” Harry rested a gentle hand against the curve of Louis’s back, hovering more than anything, like she was afraid if she touched him he might lash out. “Are you okay?”

Louis slowly sat up and rubbed at his eyes. “Just didn’t sleep very well,” he deflected.

“Yeah, I could tell,” Harry replied with a half-hearted laugh. She was still under the covers, the duvet tucked up under her chin. “You kept waking me up all night.”

“Sorry,” Louis apologized, and he meant it. “It’ll be better once this is all over.” He didn’t know that for a fact, especially not after what his mother had told him at the rehearsal dinner—knowledge he now had to live with for however long she had left—but it would be nice to have all the stress and obligation of Lottie’s wedding in the rear view mirror by tomorrow. “What time is it?” Louis asked. He was so exhausted that even the prospect of leaning over to peer at the alarm clock behind Harry’s head just made him want to fall back asleep instead.

“Nine,” Harry replied with a forlorn sigh. “We should probably get ready soon.” She waited a moment, but when Louis neither replied nor moved from where he’d propped himself up against the pillows, she continued with, “Guess I’m dilating this morning?”

Louis finally opened his eyes again to peer at her in apology. “Sorry, baby, I’m wrecked.” Not even the prospect of being inside Harry could tempt his dick into rising at any point in the next hour at least.

“It’s okay,” Harry replied with a laugh. “I’ll make us some coffee first.”

Louis grunted his approval of that plan, but he was nearly asleep again when Harry came back into their bedroom to press a warm mug of coffee into his hands. “Thanks,” he murmured before taking a sip. “Ugh.”

“No good?” Harry asked with a frown.

Louis shook his head. “Tastes fine,” he reassured her. “I just don’t want to get up.” But now it was pushing nine-thirty, with neither of them showered or dressed and Harry still with more than half an hour of dilation ahead of her, and they were supposed to arrive early at the church where the ceremony was being held at one. “Oh well,” he said with a groan as he finally heaved himself out of bed. “Want me to shower while you dilate?” he asked her.

“Yeah, I guess that works,” Harry replied a bit sadly. But they both knew if they ended up in the shower together that it would inevitably lead to activities that would put them on a path destined for tardiness. And Louis really couldn’t afford that on this day, of all the days.

Louis was marginally more awake after his shower, and by the time he got out, Harry was just about ready to hop in after finishing her dilations. He leaned down to kiss her on the cheek as he passed by on his way to the closet to get his suit out of the dry-cleaners bag, and when he turned around again, Harry was staring up at him with a baffled smile.

“What was that for?” she asked, just as the timer on her phone began to ring.

Louis shrugged. “Just felt like it,” he replied. “Is it a crime to want to kiss you now?”

Harry shook her head. “By all means, continue.”

Louis obliged by leaning down to kiss her on the lips instead. “Hurry and shower,” he urged as she reached between her thighs to pull out the larger of her two dilators. “We don’t know how bad traffic’s going to be later.”

Somehow, they managed to arrive at the church on time, at noon almost exactly, without any further mishaps. Harry was every bit as radiant as she deserved to be in her lavender gown, and Louis had never been prouder to be at her side, with their hands intertwined as they walked through the doors of the chapel. And all the while, Louis couldn’t help but imagine a year or so from now, when it would be their turn to be standing up at the altar with everyone watching them instead. He almost ached for it, his chest feeling a little tighter as he conjured up the image of Harry in a big white dress, a ring on her finger.

“You okay?” Harry—the real Harry, the one that was standing with him in the here and now—asked as she squeezed Louis’s hand.

“Yeah,” he replied stiffly. “Just a bit nervous about the whole walking my sister down the aisle thing.”

“You’ll do great,” Harry reassured him. “That’s why we’re here early remember, so we can do one last run-through.”

As such, Louis found himself separated from Harry for much of the next hour. He practiced going down the aisle with Jay in Lottie’s place while Lottie was otherwise occupied getting ready in one of the adjoining rooms, and after a couple refreshers, Louis felt a bit more confident about his ability fulfill the responsibility his sister had given him.

“Everything’s gonna be fine, baby,” Jay reassured him just a few minutes before the ceremony was supposed to begin, and Louis wasn’t sure if she was referring to the wedding or what she’d told him the night before, but either way, he did feel a lot better about all of it with his mother holding both his hands in her own the same way she used to when he was just a kid.

The ceremony itself was a whirlwind of nerves and concentration for Louis, his intense hyper focus on the task at hand narrowing the whole afternoon to that thirty second span in which he slowly walked Lottie down the aisle while the bridal march played before handing her off to her soon-to-be husband. And then Tommy _was_ her husband, just like that, the ‘I do’s playing out in what felt like a blink of an eye. Louis wasn’t even sure how long he’d been standing there when the ceremony came to its close, and he still felt like he was in a daze when Harry finally walked up to him as the crowd dispersed to shake him out of it so they could head back to their car.

“You sure you’re okay?” she asked him.

Louis nodded as all the color and sound finally flooded back in. “Never better,” he replied.

There was a lunch for the bridal party and all the close family in attendance back at Jay’s house, after which they were all supposed to help set up for the reception while Lottie and Tommy did a private gift exchange with Jay and Tommy’s parents.

For whatever reason, the hours leading up to the reception were no more coherent for Louis, who found himself separated from Harry for a great deal of the preparation as he struggled to make sure everything was running smoothly so that Lottie didn’t have to worry about a single thing.

The first moment that he felt like he could finally stop and breathe was at sundown, when everything was in its place and there was nothing left for Louis to do except sit at one of the tables with Harry by his side and relax, his eyes shut against the last remaining rays of sun streaming in over the west wall of the backyard.

“Want me to grab the food when it’s ready?” Harry asked him.

Louis nodded. “Please,” he said, too exhausted to get out another word.

The ceremony had been relatively small in its number of attendees, but the reception was much more expansive, with practically everyone who had ever known the Tomlinsons in some capacity receiving an invitation. A great number of them ended up showing up throughout the evening, including Zayn, Niall, and Liam, who thankfully managed to keep their mouths shut when Harry caught the bouquet only for Louis to catch the garter immediately after.

Their smirks were communication enough, though, and Louis rolled his eyes at them as he grabbed Harry’s hand to lead her out to the dance floor instead of facing the ribbing he knew would commence if he lingered any longer amongst his friends.

“How long before we can sneak off to your old room?”

They were in the middle of Jay’s backyard when Harry posed the question in a low tone, still slow dancing amidst a dozen or so other couples on the deck next to the pool.

“Lottie would kill me,” Louis replied in a voice pitched to match hers. “And then my mom would somehow find a way to bring me back to life so she could have the satisfaction of killing me again. I’m supposed to give another fucking speech for some reason after they cut the cake.”

Harry laughed lightly and pulled Louis a little closer to her. “Maybe they’ll be too drunk to notice you’re gone,” she joked.

“Yeah, you would say that,” Louis replied. “It’s not your ass on the line if they catch us.”

A devious glint suddenly appeared in Harry’s eyes. “But what if it was my ass on the line?” she asked pointedly, moving backwards with Louis as they swayed to the rhythm of the song that felt like it had been playing for about an hour by now, with no end in sight.

“What are you talking about?” Louis replied.

But Harry didn’t answer. She simply let go of Louis and took one more big step backwards, straight into the water behind her.

Louis reached out to catch her instinctively, but by the time his brain had registered what was happening, Harry had already gone under and come back up again, bracing her elbows on the pool deck to try and haul herself out.

Louis quickly leaned down to help her, aware all the while of the fact that everyone’s eyes were on them. The music was still playing in the background, but in all other respects, the entire reception had come to a screeching halt.

“Hi,” Harry said coyly as Louis tugged her out of the pool. She was sopping wet from head to toe, and Louis could see the outline of her bra and panties very clearly through the pale lilac fabric of her dress.

Thankfully, Phoebe had apparently leapt into action the second Harry went into the water, because when Louis pulled Harry away from the dancefloor at a near jog, his younger sister was already waiting at the back door with a beach towel ready.

“Thanks,” Louis sighed as he wrapped Harry up tight. He’d been hoping to get her inside without having to face either Lottie or his mother, but no such luck. When he looked up again, Lottie was standing there in front of him looking predictably stormy. “I guess you’ll have to get Gemma to give that speech,” Louis told her with a tight smile before fleeing into the house with Harry tucked under his arm.

She was full of giggles by the time they made it up to his childhood bedroom, which had remained relatively undisturbed in the years since Louis had vacated it thanks to the fact that Jay had turned it into a guest bedroom shortly after he’d moved out. Harry sprawled out on her back on top of the duvet and looked up at Louis with a dopey smile as he helped her peel off her wet dress.

“Now no one’s going to come looking for us,” Harry pointed out. She lifted herself up onto her elbows and stared meaningfully at Louis, who was crouched down between her legs as he tugged the dress down past her ankles.

“I don’t have any lube,” Louis told her, catching on immediately.

“You have a mouth,” Harry countered.

“I’m not fucking you with just spit and pre-come,” Louis insisted. “Especially not after we just got the go-ahead to start having sex again.” He was hesitant even about using his fingers without adequate store-bought lubrication after the fiasco that had led to Harry ending up in the ER last month.

“So just go down on me for a little while,” Harry replied easily. “It still feels good even if I don’t come. It’ll be fun. Like in college.”

Harry was referring to the game they used to play at parties, where Louis would jack Harry off in a dark corner somewhere for as long as he could without either getting caught or letting her come, and then when they got home, he would wreck her properly. The one upside of resuming the game now was that Harry didn’t have to worry about hiding a hard-on from a room full of people, so Louis supposed there wasn’t really any harm in it.

“Get your panties off then,” he said with a shrug. “Bra, too, I guess. I’ll find you some dry clothes after.”

Louis thought they could probably spend a good five minutes entertaining themselves before they needed to worry about getting back to the reception, but he’d barely gotten his tongue on her before he was pulling away with a grimace. “You taste like chlorine,” Louis told her.

He’d expected her to jokingly be offended by the comment, but instead Harry just looked down at him curiously. “What do I normally taste like?” she wondered.

Louis hadn’t garnered much experience eating pussy in his past, but from his newfound love of eating Harry out and the memories he had of going down on her when she still had a dick, it wasn’t too difficult to draw comparisons between Harry’s before and after, at the very least.

“The same as you did before the surgery, I think,” Louis answered. “But like, only the pre-come taste, I guess? And it changed when you started hormones. It was different before that.”

He leaned down again without waiting for Harry to respond to those observations and carefully wrapped his lips around her clit, sucking hard.

She jolted up into a sitting position with Louis still between her thighs, but now they were clamped hard around his face and her fingers were in his hair, pulling tighter and tighter to match the suction from his mouth.

Harry was practically vibrating when the door opened suddenly to reveal Liam standing there in the doorway.

He covered his eyes immediately and let out a pained groan. “You know, when Niall said you guys were up here banging, I really thought he was just making a bad joke.”

“Guess you should have listened,” Louis replied with a laugh as he extricated himself from Harry before covering her tits with the towel again. “Tell Lottie we’ll be back down in a minute.”

Liam nodded and turned around without uncovering his eyes. He immediately walked straight into a wall, to Harry’s unbridled amusement. And all the while, Louis didn’t take his mouth off her cunt, drawing a loud moan out of her at the end of her laughter just to rub it in a little before Liam managed to swing the door shut again.

“I can’t believe your mom never put a lock on the door,” Harry said, breathing hard as Louis finally pulled away to wipe at his mouth.

“She doesn’t believe in locks,” Louis replied. “I got caught one too many times with a boy in my room in high school and she kind of went berserk.”

Harry rolled over with another breathy laugh and slipped off the bed, heading toward the closet on her tiptoes. “Guess we better wrap this up before she finds a girl in your room instead,” she joked. “Do you have any fucking clothes in here?” she wondered aloud a few seconds later.

“Used to,” Louis informed her as he lounged on the duvet, just watching the flex of her muscles under miles of naked skin while she rummaged around in the shelves full of towels and linens that Jay had apparently replaced all of the old shit he hadn’t wanted to lug around to either his college apartment or the casita at Anne’s house, both of which had had extremely limited space. “My mom must have gotten rid of it eventually.”

Harry turned toward him with an accusatory glare. “What am I supposed to wear, then?” she demanded.

Louis shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind if you went back downstairs looking like that,” he told her.

Harry gave him a long-suffering glance. “Louis,” she said warningly.

“All right, all right, I’ll find something,” Louis promised her as he scrambled off the bed. “Stay in the bathroom, okay? I’ll knock when I come back.” He waited until she was safely shut away before opening the bedroom door again, and it was a good thing, too—Fizzy was standing right on the other side waiting with her hands on her hips as soon as Louis opened the door.

“Where’s Harry?” she asked, her eyes narrowed as she peered around Louis to see if she could find her hiding somewhere in the room behind him.

“Bathroom,” Louis replied curtly as he closed the door. “She needs some clothes to change into. Do you have anything that’ll fit?”

Fizzy gave it a second or two of thought before nodding. “Maybe a dress or something,” she decided, which was probably the best bet in Louis’s opinion as well, seeing as the height difference between Harry and his sister was severe, even after going on estrogen had shrunk Harry nearly an inch.

Louis followed Fizzy to her bedroom where she procured a few options for him to choose from. Louis picked the one he thought would fit the best, a cotton candy pink baby-doll dress that he also thought Harry might like. Or wouldn’t hate, at least. He lifted it carefully on its hanger and turned to his sister with a smile. “Thanks,” he told her. “You can tell Lottie we’ll be back down in a minute.”

Fizzy raised her eyebrows. “Good,” she replied. “She’s making everyone wait for the cake until you come back so you can do your speech.”

“Ah.” Louis did his best not to wince. He’d really been hoping to get out of that one. “Right. We’ll hurry, then.” He raced back to his bedroom with Fizzy’s dress in hand, only just remembering that he promised to knock to signal his return instead of busting through the bathroom door unannounced and scaring Harry half to death.

“This should work,” Harry said upon appraising the garment. She stepped into it carefully and turned around for Louis to help her zip it up. It fit about as well as they could have hoped, a little short around her thighs and tight in the shoulders, but it would do for the last hour or so that the reception continued. “No underwear?” Harry asked as she spun around in the mirror to get a good look at herself from every angle.

“Didn’t even ask,” Louis replied smoothly, though in truth he’d just forgotten about it at the time.

Harry’s face took on a devious grin as she slowly turned and pulled Louis in for a kiss by his tie. “Were you hoping to get under my dress a little later?” she asked in a teasing tone.

“Maybe,” Louis replied with a matching grin. “I have it on good authority that there might be a bottle of lube stashed somewhere in the car.”

“Well, I do like the sound of that.” Harry ground her still-exposed pussy against Louis’s thigh, but only for just a second before pushing him away again. “I guess we should probably go back outside before someone comes looking for us,” she said breezily, looking for all the world as though she hadn’t been seconds from giving Louis a lap dance in his childhood bedroom.

Louis was still a bit dazed, but he was clear-headed enough to remember that Lottie was still waiting for him to give that speech. He shook his head with a sigh as he reached for Harry’s hand. “Let’s see if we can’t hurry the rest of this thing along, shall we?” he said, already anticipating the car ride home and the after.

Harry smiled demurely and gave a little curtsy for show. “Lead the way.”


	30. Chapter 30

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is it! The final chapter. If you enjoyed and you'd like to read more of my work, I encourage you to follow me on Twitter or Tumblr, as I post a schedule every Monday for what I will be posting throughout the week! Hope everyone enjoyed. <3
> 
> Twitter: @vondrostes & @vondrostesupd8s  
> Tumblr: @vondrostes  
> IG: @vondrostesupd8s

Summer was upon them when Harry’s journal finally made a return.

Louis didn’t pry the first few times he spotted Harry with it close at hand, but eventually the curiosity became too much for him to resist. “Are you writing again?” he asked, nodding toward the little leather-bound book that now sat next to Harry’s bed at all times.

“Hmm?” Harry, who was close to falling asleep in bed as they watched TV, blinked herself awake and sat up to look over at Louis in confusion.

Louis cleared his throat. “You have your journal out again,” he explained. “I was wondering if that meant you were working on music again.”

“Oh.” Harry glanced over at the journal and then leaned toward the nightstand to retrieve it. She passed it over to Louis without saying another word until he opened it to discover for himself what she’d been doing. “Remember when you first came to see me in the hospital?” she asked.

Louis nodded as he scanned the pages inside. “You were making a bucket list,” he replied. He remembered that back then, she hadn’t made any progress by the time he’d arrived at her bedside, but it seemed she’d gotten over that particular mental block over the course of the past week.

Some pages were filled entirely with a single item, doodles covering the rest of the available space around Harry’s handwriting, while others had entire lists of related activities or places, much of which had been crossed out or amended as Harry’s ideas must have evolved. It was chaotic and messy, like Harry had poured her thoughts out directly onto the pages, but there some something beautiful about it at the same time.

“You know,” Louis told her as he flipped to the last page that she’d written in, “there isn’t a limit on how many things you can put on a bucket list.”

“I know,” Harry replied. “But I wanted to make a vision board eventually for the really important stuff.” She’d numbered the big ones on a separate list from one through ten, and it was those that Louis paid the most attention to as they lay in bed together.

  1. Adopt a baby (or use a surrogate???)
  2. See a ghost
  3. Go on a safari
  4. Cross-country road trip
  5. Machu Picchu
  6. Australia!!!
  7. Learn to ride a horse
  8. White Christmas
  9. Go to a nude beach
  10. Finish a marathon



It was a rather eclectic list with little to no prioritization, but it made sense for Harry, who was somehow equal parts adventurous and risk averse.

“Australia?” Louis asked, tracing a finger over the exclamation marks she’d left next to it.

“Apparently, you can tour a lot of the opal mines,” Harry informed him. “I thought it would be good to see where they come from before you buy a ring with one.”

Louis rolled his eyes, but he secretly found it endearing that she was so dedicated to making sure her engagement ring was ethically sourced. Though if he had his way, Harry would have a ring on her finger before they ever made it to that particular bullet point. “White Christmas,” he latched onto next. “You’ve never had a white Christmas?”

Harry shook her head. “Always just spent them here or in Ventura with my grandparents.”

“Well, we’ll have to do that one next year, maybe.” Louis went over the list again. “Why is going to a nude beach on your vision board?” he asked. “Can’t we just do that one like, now?”

Harry blinked at him in confusion. “You’d go to a nude beach with me? I thought I’d have to convince you.”

“Well, I might have to work up to it,” Louis replied, face going a bit red. “But it’s certainly not the same thing as seeing a ghost. You know ghosts aren’t real, right?”

“They are! People have seen them!”

“Crazy people.”

Harry glared at him and reached over to snatch the journal out of Louis’s hands. “We’re going on a ghost tour,” she insisted. “I’m going to make sure you see the fucking ghost, too.”

Louis shook his head and leaned over to kiss her on the cheek. “Whatever you say, babe.” To him, it didn’t matter what she did with the rest of her life, as long as he was still a part of it.

With the official start of summer came the imminent moving-in date for their new house, the one with the big yard and room to expand someday in the future. It was a cute little place, in need of new paint on the bare white walls, maybe, but it was plenty good enough for now.

Louis and Harry had opted to do the majority of the unpacking themselves, only asking for help from Liam and some of their other friends so they could transport what little furniture they actually owned without incurring the added expense of renting a U-Haul.

They were too tired the first night after getting all the most important things inside (like their bed) to make much use of those things (like their bed), but after the second day of unpacking, Harry started to get predictably frisky.

Louis wasn’t expecting the music that suddenly started to play from the speakers Harry had set up in the kitchen and bedroom, synced up so that they could move through most of the house without losing the thread of whatever song happened to be playing. He knew immediately what it meant, though, and he wasn’t surprised when he looked up from the box of mugs—because for some reason twenty-percent of their belongings were apparently comprised of coffee mugs—that he’d been unpacking to find Harry standing in the entryway to the kitchen dressed in nothing more than a matching set of white lace underwear with a salmon-colored silk robe draped over her shoulders.

“When did you get that?” Louis wondered, more curious than aroused at the moment, even though he knew that was soon to come.

Harry snorted. “Would you believe that my mom bought it for me when we went shopping before the wedding?”

Louis lifted his eyebrows. “Did she really?”

Harry nodded and took a few steps forward, sauntering into Louis’s space until she was finally close enough to bend over and put her palms against his thighs, exposing the full breadth of her cleavage as her breasts strained against the flimsy piece of lace keeping them constrained. “Do you want to keep talking about my mom?” she asked in a sultry tone. “Or would you rather come and help me christen our new bedroom?”

“Definitely the second one,” Louis replied all in one breath.

He quickly shoved aside the box of mugs, wincing at the sound of the ceramic rattling around inside, but once he was certain that nothing had actually broken, he allowed Harry to drag him down the hallway to their bedroom. Now that they had space to make a little bedroom specifically for the cats in the laundry room on the opposite end of the house, they didn’t have to worry about tripping over any stray kittens as they stumbled over to the bed, where Harry promptly pushed Louis down onto his back on top of the duvet before climbing on top of him and beginning to roll her hips.

“Cowgirl, huh?” Louis said as he slowly reached up to cup her ass in his hands, guiding her along the line of his cock through his pants as she got him hard without even touching him.

“To start,” Harry replied with a smirk. “You know I think I could get you balls deep now,” she mused.

“I thought you weren’t going to get much more depth once you healed,” Louis replied with a frown, distracted now from the motion of Harry’s hips sliding over his lap.

Harry sighed. “You know how in porn it’s way harder to get those giant dildos in as deep as the skinny ones?”

“Jesus, Harry.”

“No, I’m serious,” she said with a laugh. “I couldn’t figure out why I could put the dilators in all the way—I mean, you’re pretty big, but you’re not more than seven inches, so.”

“Thanks,” Louis said dryly.

“Take it as a compliment,” Harry replied as she leaned down to kiss him on the lips. “It means you can actually put your whole cock inside me.”

Louis (and Louis’s cock) did enjoy the sound of that. “What do you need me to do?” he asked her as she finally climbed off of him to unzip his jeans.

“Just stay put for now,” Harry replied. She pulled his cock out with an almost worshipful look in her eyes, and Louis had to suppress a chuckle when she gently kissed the tip of it before pulling his jeans all the way off. “Shirt, too,” she advised, and Louis was certain he’d never moved quicker to obey in his entire life.

Now Louis was naked, while Harry had yet to remove a single article of clothing, not even the salmon robe that fluttered along behind her as she climbed off the bed to grab the lube from the stash in the bathroom. Louis remained perfectly still when she returned, just watching as she set it down next to his leg before finally peeling off the tiny white pair of lace panties she’d been wearing. She’d only trimmed, Louis was pleased to see, the dark hair at the apex of her thighs providing a bit of mystery still as she got back onto the bed to straddle him.

Once Harry’s legs were open, Louis could just make out the pink of her clit poking through the darker curls obscuring the rest of her from view, and then she was pouring the lube onto her fingers and leaning back, giving him a show as she worked her fingers into herself, getting herself wet enough for what was to follow.

Louis couldn’t form words, couldn’t do anything but grip the base of his erection as he watched her, hoping that she’d finish before the temptation to get himself off became too strong.

Harry must have sensed his feelings, because she suddenly sat up again after pulling out her fingers. She gave Louis a sharp look as she reached for the lube again, pouring even more into her hand before shuffling forward to replace his hand on his cock with her own.

“Don’t move, okay?” she reminded him.

Louis nodded and twisted his fingers into the duvet, waiting for whatever was next.

Harry was tight around him the way she always was, but this time, even after it seemed she’d bottomed out, she simply kept going, the pressure increasing around the head of Louis’s cock until he was finding it just as hard to breathe as she was.

“You okay?” he managed to get out.

Harry nodded, her face taut. “Just give me a second,” she said once she’d managed to get Louis all the way inside, her clit pressed against the firm muscles of his stomach. “Fuck,” she hissed as she rolled her hips forward, grinding herself against him experimentally. “God, that’s way better.”

“Not too much?” Louis asked. He could have asked the same thing of himself, too, but he certainly wasn’t complaining about it.

“Want it to be too much,” Harry replied. She squeezed her eyes shut and clenched down with her pelvic muscles at the same time, forcing an involuntary hiss out of Louis as he endeavored to remain still. “ _God_ ,” she breathed out. “Oh my god.”

It was difficult for her to maintain much of a rhythm on top of Louis, however, with his cock that deep inside her, so she only rode him for a few minutes before they switched back to good old missionary, a tried and true favorite.

Louis fucked her slow and deep rather than hard or fast, carefully examining the expressions that flashed across her face every time he pushed inside her all the way to the base of his cock, overwhelmed by the feeling of her pussy almost swallowing him up, clinging to him every time he pulled out of her like not even her body wanted to let him go.

“Come inside me,” she begged as she wound her arms around the back of his neck, her legs squeezing his hips tight.

Louis did, and once he finally pulled out, he kept her legs spread wide with one hand, the other reaching between them to play with her pussy as she squeezed out the come deep inside her with the rhythmic pulses of her own orgasm.

“Love you,” Louis told her as he pressed a kiss against her labia and clit in quick succession. “Definitely love this.”

Harry laughed and threw her arm over her face, trying to hide her expression as Louis climbed up to kiss her on the lips, too.

“This feels perfect, doesn’t it?” she told him as they laid there, basking in the afterglow as they were wont to do on a lazy Sunday afternoon.

“Yeah,” Louis replied. “It does.” Except for just one last thing.

Harry was wracked with nerves all August long, the impending date of the festival causing her so much anxiety that she barely slept or ate except for when Louis managed to coerce her into it. She was feeling a little better when the date of the show finally arrived, only for her nervousness to come back in full force as soon as she was backstage with her guitar in hand, about to go on in less than five minutes.

“You’re gonna do so great,” Louis promised her, her face cupped gently in his hands. “You’ve got Mitch there to pick up the slack if you need it, remember?”

Harry nodded, her face still bone white.

“I’m gonna head to the VIP section now, okay?” Louis said a bit worriedly. “Do you need me to stay until you go on?”

Harry shook her head. Mitch was quick to swoop in, placing a hand on her back to steady her as Louis finally stepped away. “I’ll make sure she’s okay,” Mitch promised.

Louis nodded and gave one last final wave before slipping out to follow Emi and the others to their designated place at the very front of the stage.

The show went off without a hitch, all of Harry’s anxiety in the end, totally unfounded. She killed it, including even the joint guitar solo at the very end of the song that they’d only added a couple months ago, right after Harry and Mitch had finished writing it. Her voice hadn’t wavered once, and Louis couldn’t have been prouder.

But now that the show was over, it was Louis’s turn to find himself overcome with nerves. He managed to hide it for most of the drive to Adam’s house for the afterparty, utilizing her post-show high in his favor as a suitable distraction from the way he couldn’t seem to make his hands stop shaking.

It only got worse when they reached the house and Louis found himself forced to socialize as if it were just another house party, all the while waiting for a signal from Emi that everything was finally in place. When that signal finally came in the form of a subtle tap against Louis’s back as she walked by with a drink in her hand, Louis’s heart plummeted into his stomach. Maybe he wasn’t ready to do this after all.

But he wanted to. He needed to. And he was hoping, desperately, that Harry wanted it just as much.

“Babe?” Louis pulled Harry away from the group of her friends that she’d been chatting to with an apologetic look in their direction, ignoring her confused expression until they got to the bottom of the stairs in the foyer.

“What’s going on?” Harry asked with a frown. “We’re not leaving already, are we?”

Louis shook his head. “I wanted to show you something,” he managed, swallowing hard at the end of the sentence and hoping that the truth of it all wasn’t written plain as day on his face for Harry to see. “A surprise.”

A soft smile slowly crept onto Harry’s face. “Oh, okay.” She extended her hand for Louis to take and followed him up the stairs.

Adam and Emi’s bedroom was comprised of a large suite at the very top of the stairs, with two French doors leading inside and a matching pair on the opposite side of the room that led out onto a balcony overlooking the backyard and the pool. The bedroom itself was quiet and dark when they entered, and there was only enough light coming in from the hallway for Louis to make out the flash of bewilderment on Harry’s face as they walked in before he closed the doors behind them.

“We’re not seriously going to have sex in someone else’s bed, are we?” Harry asked with a nervous laugh as Louis slowly led her forward into the dark.

“No,” he reassured her, though he wasn’t surprised that the thought had crossed her mind. “You’ll see in a minute.” Louis fumbled his way over to the doors and then fumbled a bit more trying to get them open. Once they did, he pushed them as wide as they would go, revealing the fruits of his careful planning along with Adam and Emi’s gracious cooperation.

The balcony had been decorated in strings of fairy lights and arrangements of all of Harry’s favorite flowers, the greenery giving the illusion of privacy even though they could still hear the music and the murmur of voices from the partygoers down below. The overall effect was like something out of one of Harry’s favorite movies, a traditional romantic scene, a little bit of Romeo and Juliet.

Harry was plainly awestruck as she glanced up at the decorations all around her, her eyes wide as she took it all in. “What is this?” she asked in a hushed tone. “Did you do all this for me?”

Louis didn’t answer. Finally, he let go of her hand and slowly descended onto one knee. The heavy weight in his right pocket felt even heavier as he reached into it, time seeming to move even slower as he slowly pulled the tiny velvet-covered jewelry box into view.

“Harry—” he started to say as he pried the box open before taking a breath.

Harry’s hands came up to her mouth as tears sprang instantly to her eyes. “You didn’t,” she gasped. “Oh my god.” Before Louis could get the question all the way out, she reached down and plucked the box out of his hand to get a better look. “What about Australia?” she demanded, sounding almost betrayed that Louis had jumped the gun.

So far, this wasn’t exactly going the way he’d hoped. “I didn’t want to wait that long,” Louis admitted. “I bought the ring on Etsy, if that helps; I even made sure that all the stones are non-conflict, since I know that’s important to you. Everything except the opals came from vintage jewelry that was repurposed, actually, so….”

Harry stared down at the ring through her tears, unable to speak for several seconds as she struggled to pull herself together. The ring itself was simple, a thin band of gold with a small teardrop shaped opal in the center surrounded on either side by two tiny diamonds. It was curved in a semi-circle to accommodate for the matching wedding band, a much larger white opal centerpiece that would slot into place as if the two rings were a single piece of jewelry once Louis had the opportunity to slide the second band onto her finger at the altar.

“I don’t know what to say,” Harry finally managed in a thick voice, her words barely audible through her tears.

“Don’t say anything,” Louis admonished as he reached up to take the jewelry box back from her. “I haven’t even popped the question yet.”

“Sorry,” Harry replied through a half-laugh, half-sob.

Louis smiled as he carefully extracted the ring from its resting place inside the open jewelry box. He extended it toward Harry, offering his right hand towards her left. “Harry, will you marry me?”

Harry nodded, the tears still streaming down her face as she placed her hand in his so that Louis could slide the ring onto her finger. “Yes,” she said softly. “Yes.”

*


End file.
